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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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I'l ■ lllli I 'I I 



By KATHARINE M. ABBOTT 

Old Paths and Legends of 
New England 

Massachusetts — Rhode Island — New 

Hampshire. 

Octavo. With 186 Illustrations and a Route 

Map. $3.50 net. By mail, Sj-7J. 

Old Paths and Legends of 
the New England Border 

Connecticut — Deerfield — Berkshire. 
Octavo. IVith Photogravure Frontispiece 
and about 200 other Illustrations and a Ala/. 
•Sj-jo net. By mail, $3.75. 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 




Photograph by C. B. Webster. 

Governor Winthrop's Mill, 1650, New London, Conn. 



OLD PATHS AND LEGENDS 



OF THE 



NEW ENGLAND BORDER 




CONNECTICUT 



DEERFIELD 



BERKSHIRE 



BY 



KATHARINE M. ABBOTT 



AUTHOR OF 




" OLD PATHS AND LEGENDS OK NEW 
ENGLAND — THE EASTERN COAST " 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Gbe IRntchcrbocfcer press 
1007 



K^ 



}UBRARYofCONGRE9S 
Two CflplM Hwetvoct 

NOV 30 90? 

louss A XXC. No, 
COPY I. / 



Copyright, 1907 

BV 

KATHARINE M. ABBOTT 



~Cbc IKnfcfccrbocfecr press, "flew Jtjorfe 



Inscribed to 
P. M. A. 

AND TO 

The Exiles from New England 



PREFACE 

In our new historical journey, we shall attempt to follow, 
as far as may be in a few pages, the ever-shifting border line 
of colonial settlement — the westward drift of the log-hut 
across the wilderness of New England in the days when we 
were still subject to kingly rule. 

The story of border life in the North American colonies 
is more of a romance than an historical study, a vivid illus- 
tration of Daudet's aphorism — " Romance is the history 
of men, and history the romance of kings." 

It was in the reign of King Charles that the inevitable 
course of empire swept on to the New England coast; the 
great Anglo-Saxon wave crept onward from river-valley to 
river-valley, the Indian kings retreating before it, ever 
westward, exiles from the hunting-grounds of their fathers; 
until, in the reign of "our sovereign Lord — George the 
Second," nought but the Taconic range of Berkshire stood be- 
tween the homes of the English yeomanry on the Housatonic 
and the feudal manors of Dutch Patroons on the Hudson. 

The experience of our colonists is unique in the history of 
nations : in part a peaceful tilling of the soil ; in part a strife 
with a race of red-men, some amenable to friendly overture, 
others implacable fiends in human form, dreaded, even as 
allies, by both French and English. Yet the acts of these 
strange, primitive chiefs changed the history of the Courts 
of Europe. 

It is a fascinating occupation to trace the westward path 
trodden by our ancestors. Perchance a fine old Norman 
name, a trifle Anglicized, appears on the passenger list of the 
good ship Mary and John; this shows that its possessor 
was unceremoniously deposited, plus goods and chattels, 



iv Preface 

on Nantasket Point by Captain Squeb, who, fearing to 
face the intricacies of Boston Harbor, left the " godly families 
of Devonshire and Dorsetshire" to shift for themselves in the 
wilds. A year later, that same sturdy name is found at- 
tached to Dorchester land-grants, and shortly appears anew 
at Windsor on the Connecticut, or at palisadoed Northamp- 
ton as of a freeman and proprietor. His eldest son elects to 
carry the name over the ragged Hoosacs, taking up his 
Province grant in the picturesque valley of the Housatonic. 
In turn, his son passes beyond the New England border to 
plant our Western Reserve. In the great Northwest to-day 
we discover four several towns endowed with that knightly 
Norman name, so marvellously far-travelled since first 
transplanted by William the Conqueror. 

The marked and pretty contrast between the rich scenes 
of New England's border-land and her eastern coast has 
been interpreted for me by artists, each of whom has deeply 
breathed the air of this, his native heath. Likewise I am 
again indebted to publishers, English and American, and 
to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, and Company for permission 
to transcribe verses of the poets, who sprang full-armed 
from this rocky land spied out by their forefathers. 

K. M. A. 

Belvidere, Lowell, 
August, 1907. 



CONTENTS 



The First Voyage of "The Restless": How a Dutch 
Yacht, Sailing out of Manhattan, Discovered 

THE HOUSATONICK, CoNNITTECOCK, AND PeQUOT 

Rivers .... 

Uncas and the Chase of the Pequots 
Saybrook (Pasheshauke), 1635 
Lyme (East Saybrook), 1645 
New London (Pequot), 1645 
Norwich . ... 

Through Gardiner's Bay to Greenport 
East Hampton . 
Sag Harbor 
Southampton, 1640 
Shelter Island . 
Guilford, 1639 . 
New Haven (Quinnipiac), 1637 
The Tour of General Washington in 1789 
Deerfield (Pocumtuck), 1670 
Northampton (Nonotuck), 1654 . 
Stockbridge (Indian Town), 1737-9 
Tyringham, i 739-1 762 
Lenox (Yokuntown), 1 739-1767 
plttsfield (pontoosuck), 1752 



I 
II 

16 

42 

64 
78 

81 

86 

89 

93 
96 

IOI 

127 

150 

158 

194 
217 

2 55 
269 

2 93 



vi Contents 

PAGE 

Great Barrington (Upper Housatonnuck), i733 _I 7 6 ° 33& 

From Great Barrington to Litchfield . . . 352 

Litchfield, 1721-1724 ...... 367 

Index 393 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Opp. 



Governor Oliver Wolcott Mansion, Litchfield, Conn. Cover 
Photograph by C. B. Webster. 

District School with Wood-house, Xorth Guilford, 

Conn. . . . . . . . Title-page 

Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard. 

Governor Winthrop's Mill, New London, Conn. Frontispiece 
In Color. 

Bash-Bish Falls, Berkshire 

Photograph by Edwin H. Lincoln. 

Water-Lilies ...... 

Photograph by H. E. Robbins. 

The Housatonic River, Sheffield, Mass. 
Photograph by H. E. Robbins. 

East Rock, New Haven .... 

Thomas Leete House, Sachem's Head, Conn. 
Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard. 

Shantic Falls, Mohegan, Conn. . 

The Medicine Man ..... 

The Fringed Gentian .... 

Photograph by H. E. Robbins. 

Lion Gardiner's Mill-Stone, Saybrook Point, Conn 

Polishing Gran'ther's Powder-horn . 
Photograph by Marshall P. Cram. 

On Long Island Sound ..... 

Photograph by F. Atwater Ward. 

Tomb of Lady Fenwick, Saybrook Point, Conn. 
Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard. 

Tin-Peddler's Cart, Old Saybrook 

Photograph by C. M. Acton. 
Captain Elisha Hart Homestead, Old Saybrook 

Photograph by C. M. Acton. 

Humphrey Pratt Tavern ..... 



3 

7 
8 

12 

14 
J 5 

20 

24 

28 
3° 

34 
39 



41 



Vlll 



Illustrations 



Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard. 

Elm Arch, Blackhall, Lyme, Conn. 

Photograph by John R. Baynes. 
Governor Griswold Homestead, Blackhall, Lyme 

Photograph by John R. Baynes. 
Memorial Bridge, Lyme, Conn. .... 

Photograph by John R. Baynes. 
On the Banks of Lieutenant River . 

Photograph by John R. Baynes. 

Home of the Artists, Lyme .... 

Photograph by John R. Baynes. 

Whitefield Rock, in the Ludington Garden 
Photograph by John R. Baynes. 

Studio of Allen B. Talcott, Lyme 

Photograph by John R. Baynes. 
The McCurdy House, Lyme .... 

Photograph by Dr. George Grant MacCurdy. 
Old Lyme Church ...... 

Photograph by Dr. George Grant MacCurdy. 

Rogers Lake ....... 

Salt Meadows ....... 

Summer Home of Dr. Samuel R. Elliott, New London 

Hempstead Homestead, New London, Conn 

Ocean Beach, New London 

The Town of Noank, Conn. 

Cloyer-Blossoms 

Trout Brook near Norwich, Conn. 

Watch Hill, R. I. . 

New London Light 

Montauk Point and Camp Wyckoff 

Oysters on Natural Bed, Long Island Sound 

Presbyterian Church, Sag Harbor, L. I. 

Town Creek, Southold, L. I. 

Sayre Homestead, Southampton, L. I. 

Manor of Shelter Island .... 



Illustrations 



IX 



An October Day, Southampton, L. I. 

Spire of the First Church, Guilford, Conn. 
Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard of Guilford. 

Grace Starr House, Crooked Lane, Guilford 
Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard of Guilford. 

Samuel Hubbard House .... 
Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard of Guilford. 

Stone Homestead and Chittenden Homestead 
Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard of Guilford. 

Samuel Robinson Homestead 

Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard of Guilford. 

Ruttawoo Brook, Nutplains, Guilford 

Side-porch of the Foote Homestead, Nutplains 

Roxana Foote (Mrs. Lyman Beecher) 
Drawing by Mildred Howells. 

Foote Homestead, front yiew, Nutplains 

The little District School, North Guilford 

Birthplace of David Dudley Field, Madison, Conn. 

Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard. 
Birthplace of Gilbert Munger, Opening Hill 

Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard. 
Lot Benton House, Guilford 

Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard. 

Worthington Bartholomew House, Guilford 

Door-knocker, Mulberry Farm . 

Ivy Tower, Yale Library . 

United Church, New Haven Green 

Photograph by Dr. George Grant MacCurdy. 

East Rock, New Haven 
Roger Sherman House, New Haven . 
Pierpont House, New Haven- 
Collins Homestead and Savin Rock . 

An Old-fashioned Garden, Milford, Conn. 
Photograph by H. W. Benjamin. 

Phelps Gateway, Yale University 
Photograph by Herbert Randall. 



PAGE 

99 

IOI 
I02 

104 

I°5 
IO9 

no 
III 

113 

115 
116 
118 



124 
125 

126 

127 
128 

13° 

x 3 2 
^^ 
135 
*37 

i39 



Illustrations 



PAGE 



* M3 


■ 147 


149 


• 151 


iS3 


• i54 


■ i55 


. 156 



"Wag at the Wa'," Heirloom of a New Haven House 141 
By permission of Mrs. E. M. Leete. Drawing by Hubbard. 

A Tea-Service from the old Maltby Mansion . 142 
By permission of Mrs. E. M. Leete. 

Home of Donald G. Mitchell, LL.D., New Haven 
Photograph by C. E. Cornwall. 

Washington ....... 

From a painting and engraving by Rembrandt Peale. 

Powder-horn, Anson Phelps Stokes Collection 

Benson's Tavern and the Village Elms, Fairfield 

First House without the Palisades, Milford, Conn. 

An Old Churchyard, Wethersfield, Conn. 

The Governor Webster House, Hartford, Conn. 

Chief-Justice Ellsworth Mansion, Windsor, Conn. 

Photograph by H. W. Benjamin. 
Charter Oak Chair, the Capitol, Hartford . . 157 

Photograph by Mrs. Sara T. Kinney, State Regent of the 

Connecticut D. A. R. 

Samson Frary House, Deerfield, Mass. . . .160 

Photograph by Miss Emma L. Coleman. 
The Fall in Deerfield Old Street .... 165 

Photograph by Frances and Mary Allen. 
Allen Homestead, Deerfield ..... 169 

Photograph by Frances and Mary Allen. 
Old South Door of the Nims Homestead . . .170 

In Color. Photograph by Frances and Mary Allen. 
The North Meadows to Cheapside . . . 175 

Photograph by Frances and Mary Allen. 
Ell of the John Sheldon Homestead, Old Street . 179 

Photograph by Frances and Mary Allen. 
Stoop of the Parson Williams Homestead . .182 

Photograph by Frances and Mary Allen. 
Snow Shoe Dance . . . . . . .185 

From Catlin's North American Indians. 
The Old Manse, Deerfield ..... 189 

Photograph by Frances and Mary Allen. 
Sign of the Burk Tavern, Bernardston . . .192 

Photograph by Joseph Lamb. 



Illustrations xi 



PAI !B 



Ax Heirloom .... ... 193 

At Hockaxum uxder the Shadow of Mt. Holyoke . 195 

Photograph by Clifton Johnson. 
Whately Glex . . . . . . . -197 

"The Gallopixg of the Mountain," Holyoke Raxge 198 

In Color. Photograph by Clifton Johnson. 

Mouxt Tom ix wixter ...... 200 

Spectres of Frexch axd Ixdiax Wars . . . 201 

Ready for the Coloxial Ball ..... 206 
In Color. Photograph by Katherine C. McClellan. 

View across Conxecticut Riyer from Holyoke . 211 

Photograph by C. H. Prentiss. 

The Studexts' Buildixg, Smith College . . -215 

Photograph by Katherine E. McClellan. 

Lake Makheexac or Stockbridge Bowl . . . 218 

Photograph by Mrs. John Wm. Boothby. 

MOXUMEXT MOUXTAIX . . . . . . . 219 

Photograph by Raymond Cilley. 

Housatoxic River, Berkshire ..... 224 

The Old Missiox House, Stockbridge . . . 225 
The Mohegax Coxyert . . . . . .227 

moxumext to the housatoxic ixdiaxs . . 233 
St. Paul's Church axd "Shays's Rebellion- Elm," 

Stockbridge ....... 237 

Photograph by Edward W. Morley, Ph.D., LL U. 

The Sedgwick Homestead, Stockbridge . . . 241 

Aspiratiox . . . . . . . 2^; 5 

From a Painting by Frederic Crowninshield. 

The Charcoal Cart, Berkshire .... 248 

Studio of Daxiel Chester Frexch, Glexdale . . 249 
Photograph by W. L. Benedict. 

Wixdswept Sxow, Stockbridge . . . .251 

The Childrex's Chimes .... . 254 

Squire Thomas Garfield House, Tyrixgham . 257 

Photograph by Edward W. Morley, Ph.D., LL.D. 

Riyerside Farm, Tyrixgham Valley .... 259 



X1L 



Illustrations 



The Mountain Path . 

Photograph by Win. H. Sanford. 

Lake Garfield, Monterey, Mass. 

Elephant Rock, Monterey 

Photographs by W. L. Benedict. 

Four Brooks Farm 

Photograph by Gessford. 
Portrait of Catherine Sedgwick 

The Old Saw-mill, Lenox 

Photograph by Major F. C. Grugan. 
A Deserted Quarry, Lee . 

Kemble Street, Lenox 

Photograph by William Radford, BritisJi Embassy. 

Apple-orchard of Hawthorne's Little Red House 

Photograph by Major F. C. Grugan. 
The Church on the Hill, Lenox .... 

Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard. 

" Yokun Farm," old Home of Judge William Walker 

"yokun, " remodelled, goodman residence, lenox 

Birches at "Stonoyer, " Lenox . 

Photograph by Major F. C. Grugan. 

Sentinel Poplars ....... 

Among the Green Mountains ..... 

A Wine-Glass Elm, Berkshire ..... 

Photograph by Major F. C. Grugan. 
Williams-Newton House, "The Rectory," Pittsfield 

Photograph by Edwin H. Lincoln. 
The Saddle of Greylock from South Mountain Pitts- 
field ........ 

Photograph by Edwin II. Lincoln in Color. 
Van Schaack Mansion, now The Country Club, 
Pittsfield ....... 

Photograph by Edwin H. Lincoln. 

The Holmes Pine, Canoe Meadows .... 

Photograph by Edwin H. Lincoln. 
The Home of Mrs. Kellogg, East Street 

Photograph by Edwin II. Lincoln. 



PAGE 
262 

263 
265 

266 

271 

273 

2 74 
279 

281 

283 

286 
2S9 
291 

2 95 
297 
;oo 



306 



3°9 



3^5 



Illustrations 



Xlll 



PAGE 

"Elm Knoll," East Street, Pittsfield . . .317 

Photograph by Edwin H. Lincoln. 

The Brattle Homestead, Pittsfield .... 320 

" Holiday Cottage, " Dalton, Mass. .... 323 

Waconah Falls, Windsor . . . . . -325 

Photograph by Edwin H. Lincoln. 
Hubbell Homestead, Lanesboro .... 327 

Photograph by Edwin H. Lincoln. 
Old Home of "Josh Billings", Lanesboro . . . 329 

Photograph by Edwin H. Lincoln. 
Thompson Memorial Chapel, Williams College . .331 

Photograph by Edward W. Morley, Ph.D., LL.D. 
Squire Peirson House, Richmond .... 334 

Photograph by Edward W. Morley, Ph.D., LL.D. 
The Housatonic, Great Barrington .... 339 
The Dome of the Taconics ..... 341 

Photograph by W. L. Benedict. 

Lake Mansfield ....... 343 

Photograph by W. L. Benedict. 
Winter-woods, Searles estate, Great Barrington . 345 

Photograph by W. L. Benedict. 
Pond's Brook, Huntington ..... 347 

Photograph by Edwin H. Lincoln. 
The East Road to Sheffield . . . . .350 

Photograph by W. L. Benedict. 
The Under Mountain Road, Salisbury, Conn. . -3 53 

Photograph by W. L. Benedict. 
Angoras " in Clover" ...... 355 

Photograph by Mrs. J. C. Kendall. 
Governor Holley House, Lakeville, Conn. . . 358 

Schaghticoke Mountain . . . . . -360 

Gaylord Homestead, Gaylordsville on the Housa- 
tonic ........ 362 

Hon. Elijah Boardman House, New Milford, Conn. . 364 
Bantam Lake, Litchfield, Conn. .... 366 

Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard. 
The Beecher Elm ....... 367 

Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard. 



xiv Illustrations 

PAGE 

Deming Homestead, Litchfield . . 368 

Photograph by Wm. H. Sanford. 

"Town Hill Street, " Litchfield .... ^70 
Photograph by Wm. H. Sanford. 

Wolcott Mansion, Litchfield ..... 373 
Photograph by Wm. H. Sanford. 

The Judge Gould House, Litchfield . . . 375 

Drawing by Charles D. Hubbard. 

Jewelled Trees, Litchfield ... . 377 

Photograph by Wm. H. Sanford. 

The Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge-Noyes House . 379 

Photograph by Wm. H. Sanford. 

Interior, "Ardley," Litchfield .... 383 

Photograph by Wm. H. Sanford. 

Bradleyville Tavern, Bantam ..... 384 

Bantam River, Litchfield ..... 387 

The Underwood Residence, Litchfield . . . 389 

The Great Elm, Wethersfield, the Largest this side 

of the Rockies ...... 390 

Sketch-Map of Western New England, indicating the 
Border Towns and seat of the more powerful 
Indian Tribes ...... at end 



OLD PATHS AND LEGENDS OF THE NEW 
ENGLAND BORDER 




Bash-Bish, Berkshire 

The most remarkable cascade in Massachusetts- it plunges 200 feet in all and 
leaps on through a gorge, between Alandar and Cedar Mountain, to join the 
mighty Hudson . Rare varieties of the fringed gentian have been found here by 
Professor Peck. 



Old Paths and Legends of 
the New England Border 



THE FIRST VOYAGE OF THE RESTLESS 



HOW A DUTCH YACHT, SAILING OUT OF MANHATTAN, DIS- 
COVERED THE HOUSATONICK, CONNITTECOCK, AND 
PEOUOT RIVERS 



They goe abord 
And he eftsoone gan launche 
his barke forthright. " 
The Faerie Queene. 



'N the bright, inspiring days 
peculiar to spring on the 
Island of Manhattan, some 
six years before the May- 
flower entered Plymouth 
harbor, and seven seasons 
after the romantic adventure of Captain John Smith with 
Powhatan, "Emperor of Virginia," and the Princess Poco- 
hontas, it happened that the small Dutch yacht Onrust — 
"The Restless" — swiftly slipped her ways to search out 
the hitherto unexplored waters of our Long Island Sound. 
Unexplored? Yes, unless perhaps the castled galleons of 
Spain passed through in search of treasure, or a Viking's 




2 Old Paths of the New England Border 

dragon prow chanced here on quest by sagas unrecorded. 
The yacht's name — Onriist — indicates the poetic tem- 
perament of Adriaen Blok (Block), her builder and com- 
mander, who, with the relentless longings of a born explorer, 
had indeed become restless, having been forced by the 
burning of his ship Tiger 1 to spend an inert, impatient 
winter among the natives of Manhattan. 

Friendly these savages were, but looked askance at the 
huge black dog of the schipper — "Sachem of dogs," 
the Indians called him. Tradition says of the first arrival 
of the Dutch at Manhattan Island (as communicated to 
the Rev. John Heckewelder by the Indians themselves) 
that they took every white man for a Mannitto, yet inferior 
to the Supreme Mannitto of the red and laced clothes. The 
whites asked them only for so much land as the hide of a 
bullock would cover, which hide was spread upon the 
ground. The Indians readily granted this request and 
the whites cut the hide up into a rope not thicker than the 
finger of a little child, and drawing it out this hide encom- 
passed a large piece of ground. The Indians were surprised 
at the superior wit of the whites, but did not contend about 
a little land, as they had enough. 

' The Delawares call New York island Mannahattanink, 
'the island of general intoxication,' because here their 
chiefs first tasted fire-water offered them by Mannitto or 
the white-skins. " 



1 Possibly Blok's ship was that same famous Tiger commanded by 
"Pretty Lambert" when Holland's "pigmy menagerie" fleet gained a 
phenomenal victory over Spain's bulky squadron within the very horns 
of Gibraltar? What an incomparable chapter is Motley's picturing of 
that valorous day for the Dutch sea-conquerors! "It is difficult for 
Netherlander not to conquer on salt water," said Admiral Heemskerk, 
standing in front of his mainmast on the ALohts, "clad in complete armor, 
with the orange plumes waving from his casque. " And following his 
command the Tiger, Sea Dog, Griffin, Golden Lion, and White Bear 
grappled with Admiral A Vila's ponderous galleons. — United Netherlands. 



Netherlanders Discover the Housatonic 3 

Now with winter's first relenting, these sea-conquering 1 
Hollanders and Zeelanders were seized with violent spring- 




The Housatonic River and Mount Everett from the Old Red 
Bridge, Sheffield. 

" Thither drifted the Mohican from the Hudson, 
Housatonic signifying "over tJic mountain." 

fret and a burning fever to attain fame by exploration of 
America — the magic Unknown. 

1 Toward the end of the great war the Netherlands were first in com- 
merce and held supremacy on the seas. Amsterdam is described by 
Antonio Donato as the very image of Venice :'n its prime, the streets being 
so thronged and bustling, the scene looked to lint like a fair to end in one 
day. — Motley's United Netherlands. 

The Northern Provinces of the Netherlands scarcely exceeded two 
million of souls, but were animated by a spirit which Sir Philip Sydney 
said to Queen Elizabeth "is the spirit of God and is invincible." 



4 Old Paths of the New England Border 

The On rust piloted her way along the river Hellegat 
between islands not yet white with flowering dogwood ; she 
escaped unscathed out of the old vixen whirlpool where 
the waters of East River meet Long Island Sound in ram- 
pant swirl, rushing across the Gridiron and overflowing the 
Pot into the Frying-pan of Hell Gate, 1 as the sailor 
has it. 

Giving a wide berth starboard to the sand bars and spits 
of Metonwacs or Sewanhacky, "land of the periwinkle" or 
the " country of the ear-shell" (Long Island), Block hugged 
the "Great Bay's" north shore, where shifted a panorama 
of serene meadows and low-lying hills, until was met the 
Housatonick's mouth. 

Close at hand lay golden landholdings, for the Onrust's 
merchant owners in Amsterdam, a new Netherland. There- 
fore it behooved Adriaen Blok to hasten to surpass in the 
new West, the English, Holland's jealous rival in the East. 
America was the meaty bone now snatched at by three 
European mastiffs. The red flag of England waved over 
Virginia, the white banner of France in Canada, and the 
tri-color of a new nation now displayed itself in the region 
between. 

The coming struggle for the 
American Continent was fore- 
shadowed when de Halve-Maan, 
flying the orange, blue, and white 
flag of Holland, anchored within 
Sandy Hook and, with his mixed 



EAST RIVER. 



LANDMARKS: Fortified in '76 
from the Battery to Hell Gate. 
Wallabout Bay — " Waal-booght in 
the bend of the inner harbor " — here 
during the Revolution anchored 
the terrible British prison ships; 
Fulton Ferry — at which point Wash- 



1 The entire East River was called "Hellegat" by Adriaen Blok, its 
first European pilot, in honor of a branch of the Scheldt. The whirlpool 
of Hell Gate is formed by the far long sweep of the waves from the Race 
in the east from Montauk (the first measure of the tide being from Mon- 
tauk to Block Island) accumulating all the length of the Sound and meet- 
ing the lesser tides from Sandy Hook. 



Dutch, French, and English Adventure 5 



crew of Dutch and English, Henry 
Hudson climbed the River of 
the Mountains, named by the 
Dutch "Mauritius" in honor of 
Prince Maurice of Nassau. Sa- 
luting the frowning Dunderberg 
at sunset the Half-Moon awoke 
near West Point amid sublimest 
scenery in the Matteawan moun- 
tains. At future Fort Nassau 
(Albany) the Dutch vessel was 
met by her Eldorado — the In- 
dians, laden with countless rich 
beaver skins, 1 to say nothing of 
grapes and pumpkins. 

Foreshadowed also was the com- 
ing contest at the same moment 
in Canada; there one perceives 
the noble, striking figure of the 
Father of New France, Sieur 
de Champlain, raising the citadel 
of Quebec with martial form and 
Catholic faith, "in one hand the 
crucifix, the other the sword." 
Foreshadowed when the words America and Virginia 
became the topic of fashion in England. Lords of the 
Admiralty and Commoners alike gossiped over Captain 
John Smith's bold expeditions up the Chesepeak, and each 
placed a venture in some ship bound for Virginia, all Britain 



ington made h ic masterly retreat, 
outwitting General Howe. New 
York itself daily grows more pic- 
turesque, adding graceful bridges at 
dizzy heights. United States Mar- 
ine Hospital stands on site of the 
house of the Catelyn's mother of 
Breucklyn. Beyond Hell Gate are 
Buchanan's and Montresor's, or 
Randall's and Ward's Islands, 
whence the British planned to 
attack Washington at Harlem. 
Opposite Port Morris and Astoria 
you run between North Brother 
and South Brother, " who never 
spoke to each other"; a Lorillard 
house near Old Ferry Point; College 
and Whitestone Points with Vliess- 
ingen or Flushing; Westchester, 
the "Neutral Ground"; Fort Schuyler 
and Willett's Point ; Stepping Stone 
Light; in Cow Bay Shelter storm- 
bound boats await smooth water; 
Hart, City, and Glen Islands; East 
Chester Bay; Pelham Manor, named 
for Dr. Thomas Pell of Saybrook 
and Fairfield who settled in West- 
chester; Ann Hutchinson murdered 
by the Indians; New Rochelle, 
founded by the Huguenots. All 
vessels in the Sound run for Execu- 
tion Light. Outside East River is 
Hempstead harbor. Long Island, 
Eaton's Neck Light, the beautiful 
land-locked harbor of Port Jefferson, 
Mt. Sinai and Crane Neck, the 
General Spinola estate. 



1 Thenceforth the Dutch assiduously cultivated commercial acquain- 
tance with the tribes of the Hudson who "go further than twenty days' 
iourney into the interior to catch beaver for us " writes Miles Van Der 
Donck, Doctor of Laws, to the merchants at home. The beaver, he 
says, resembles "the shape of a cucumber which has a short stem, or 



6 Old Paths of the New England Border 

had gone mad over a shipload of gold dust, or " fool's gold," 
(iron pyrites) just imported from the precious sands of the 
James. What applause, when Britons of "brave heroic 
minds" set sail, bathed in the molten light of Raleigh's 
glory and adventure, while Michael Drayton wafted down 
the Thames a Godspeed in twelve stanzas: 

"And cheerfully at sea, 
Success you still entice 
To get the pearls and gold, 
And ours to hold 

VIRGINIA 

Earth's only paradise." 

How different the scene on the Thames, on the exodus 
to settle "North Virginia" (New England). Noncon- 
formists of high degree, Pilgrim and Puritan, stole away 
as secretly as possible, dreading even the creaking of an 
anchor-chain lest it betray them and an order of detention 
be served by the King's Council. Among these were Thomas 
Hooker and John Davenport, the founders of Hartford and 
New Haven. 

Half a score of miles east of the Housatonick the Onrust 
entered a deep bay — New Haven harbor. Conspicuous 
above the coast line rose sharply serrated iron-rusted cliffs, 
a fair valley between. The Netherlanders were vastly 
interested in the unique topography of this spot and de- 
scribed it in their scenic log as Roodenberg — "the Red 
Mount Place." These two Red Hills are now famous. 

a duck that has the neck and head cut off. " In those days beaver 
skins were currency in New Netherland and covered men's heads not 
women's shoulders. The Indians called the whites "men with hats en" 
and pictured in beads on their wampum the warrior of the scalp-lock and 
the Dutch trader wearing a beaver hat. "The Dutch crossed the Atlantic 
to trade for beaver even as the Puritans came to catch fish and the 
Cavaliers to cultivate tobacco." — The American in Holland, Griffis. 



Roodenberg on The Sound 7 

East Rock is tipped by its shaft of Liberty and West Rock 
holds the Judges' Cave which willingly concealed the 
Regicides, fugitives from the wrath of the followers of 




East Rock, New Haven. 

Charles, who is yet spoken of as "the royal martyr 1 ; a 
remarkable episode this in the history of the Puritan town 
with laws dipped in deepest indigo. 

It has been misstated that East and West Rock are 
terminals of that most ancient range, the Green Mountains, 
made millions of years before these rocks were deposited: 
they are of igneous origin turned into sandstone and the 
sandstone worn away. The near-by wonderful Hanging 

1 The first Lord Holland used to relate, with some pleasantry, a usage 
of his father, Sir Stephen Fox, which proves the superstitious veneration 
in which the Tories held the memory of Charles I. On the 30th of January, 
the wainscot of the house was hung with black, and no meal of any sort 
was allowed till after midnight. This attempt at rendering the day 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



Hills of Meriden and Talcott Mountain, also Mt. Holyoke 
and Mt. Tom are lava flows. Judges' Cave is a boulder 
carried down from Meriden and dropped on the ice. 

Adriaen Blok sailed on eastward toward the country of 
the "Pekatoos" (Pequots). New Haven's West and East 










§ 







■i\ 







Nate 



At Sachems Head, Guilford, in igoy. 
The Thomas Lcctc house of 1730. 

Rocks, "with summits finely figured," faded from view, 
whilst Mount Carmel, the sleeping giant of the Quinnipiacs, 
lay a deep purple cloud on the horizon. Skirting the shore 

melancholy by fasting had a directly contrary effect on the children; 
for the housekeeper, apprehensive that they might suffer for food, gave 
the little folks clandestinely confits and sweetmeats, and Sir Stephen's 
intended fast was looked upon by the younger part of the family as a 
holiday diversion. — Correspondence of C. J. Fox, edited by Earl Russell. 



Mackimoodus on the Connecticut 9 

of Menunkatuck (Guilford) — to be colonized by men of 
Kent under the leadership of Henry Whitfield and Samuel 
Desborough — the Onrust entered " Connittecock " River; 
astonished at the strong current moving downward and the 
unusual freshness of the waters near the mouth, Blok named 
it Verch or " Fresh- Water River." 

Blok entered the Connecticut highlands (at present 
Haddam), where the broad stream is compressed to thirty- 
five rods in a remarkable gorge of crystalline rocks, the 
Strait Hills. Near Mount Tom the Hollanders may have 
heard strange earth rumblings like the roaring of cannon 
or cracking of small shot; the "Moodus noises" occur 
spasmodically at Mackimoodus near the mouth of Salmon 
River, where an early writer says the Indians "held pow- 
wows with the devil." These subterranean thunderings 
have been heard as far as New London. An old Indian 
being asked the reason of the noises replied, "the Indians' 
God very angry, Englishman's God come here." 

Blok saw wigwams of the Sequins at Folly Point, just 
below Hartford; had he chosen to land on the east side 
(Glastonbury, to-day covered with orchards of pink peach 
blossoms) and mounted the hill, he might have had a glo- 
rious view from Connecticut's Mt. Tom to Mt. Tom of 
Massachusetts. 

On this hill was a fortified eyrie of the plucky Red Hills 
tribe, between whom and the Mohawks was deadly hatred, 
and the legend goes that the Mohawks thrice attempted to 
climb the hill, but the Red Hills rolled logs and stones down 
upon them; then they determined on stratagem. One day 
a" runner " brought news that the Mohawks were coming, and 
the Red Hills gathered the squaws within the fort. After 
long waiting the Red Hills dispatched scouts, who struck 
the trail near Enfield running to Roaring Brook. There 
the scent was lost; the Mohawks entered the stream, waded 



10 Old Paths of the New England Border 

down to the mouth, surprised and butchered the Red Hills 
from the rear. This happened about the period when the 
first settlers migrated to Connecticut, and Barber says that 
"the fro ward child was often subdued by the terrific ex- 
clamation, 'the Mohawks are coming!' " 

Blok was able to navigate as far as Windsor Locks, then 
visited Siccanemos, or river of the Sachem, now Mystic; and 
Little Fresh River, or the Thames, skirting the site of 
New London. Blok's map, beautifully executed on parch- 
ment, in the Archives of the Hague (a copy is at Albany) 
was our first map of Southern New England. How joy- 
ously the Amsterdam merchants placed it before the Di- 
rectors and obtained a trading charter, with exclusive 
rights ' : to visit and navigate" from New France to Virginia, 
"now named New Netherland." 

Blok's map shows that he coasted to Montauk Point, 
naming it appropriately ] r isscJier's Hoeck, touched Martha's 
Vineyard and the Indians' beautiful Mauisses, with its 
great lake and ninety-nine small ones, and extraordinary 
Mohegan cliffs, to which he gave his name ; we call it Block 
Island, the Dutch, Adrian's Eyland; the Rhode Island 
Assembly christened it New Shorcham, and \\ niftier revived 
Alauisses, or the "Little God," the charming musical ap- 
pellation of the cruel tribe who drove the Mohegans to the 
cliffs' edge, and watched them perish, penned between the 
sea and a more unmerciful enemy. To-day Block Island 
has two guardians: 

"Point Judith watches with eyes of hawk, 
Leagues south by beacon flames Montauk ! " 



UNCAS AND THE CHASE OF THE PEQUOTS 

" Where erst the red brow'd hunter stray'd 
And marks those streamlets sheen and blue 
Where gliding sped thy slight canoe." 

"Hark, hark, from yonder darksome field 
Methought their thundering war-shout pealed — 
Methought I saw in flickering spires 
The lightning of their council fires. " 
Mrs. Sigourney on visiting the last of the Mohegans at Montville on 
the Pequot (Thames) River, Connecticut. 

Because of a quarrel between two mighty Sagamores, 
Sassacus, the merciless, and Uncas the brave, came about 
the first sight of the beautiful shore of Long Island Sound 
by Englishmen, and an instant resolve to barter with the 
Indians for this fertile coast west of the Connecticut River. 
It was by guiding the white forces in their thrilling pursuit 
of the Pequots, who had been driven out of their stronghold 
by Captain John Mason, that Uncas gained a stern revenge 
over Sassacus in the midsummer of sixteen hundred and 
thirty-seven, and caused New Haven Colony to be added to 
King James's colonial possessions. 

The glory of the Pequot tribe was approaching its merid- 
ian when the Dutch on the Onrust discovered their wide 
hunting-grounds, which by conquest the tribe had ex- 
tended, from where their Prince held his court on the Mys- 
tick River (Groton, Conn.) quite beyond Quinnipiac to the 
Housatonic and even farther north into the "Whetstone" 
country of the Nipmucks (the Oxford lakes, south of 
Worcester) . 

These Pequots and also the Mohegans are both believed 



12 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



to be branches of the Mohican nation who roamed the 
Upper Hudson, drifting eastward, some attaching them- 
selves to the Berkshire Hills, others establishing themselves 
about the Thames. Prince Sassacus and Uncas, at first 
the lesser Sachem, were both of royal blood and entitled 
to wear the wolf-badge emblem of the Mohegans; Les Loups 




Shantic Falls, Mokegan, Conn. 

" Not by her sunbeams only, summer 's known, 
But by her deepening shadows, fern-flecked stone.'' 



was the name by which the French distinguished them, 
being the nation of the wolf's-head totem, the enchanted 
wolf of supernatural power. Captain John Smith, so quick 
to observe distinctions, describes a savage as wearing "a 
wolf's head hanging in a charm for a Jewell. " 



Sassacus driven from the Mystic 13 

"And they painted on the grave posts 
On the graves yet unf or gotten, 
Each his own ancestral Totem, 
Each the symbol of his household; 
Figures o) the Bear and Reindeer, 
Of the Turtle, Crane, and Beaver. " 

The tomahawk of the great Prince of the Pequots, fierce 
Sassacus, was against every hut and wigwam. He had 
never been known to bury the hatchet until now, in 1636, 
he sought alliance with the powerful Narragansetts, in 
order to wipe out forever these pale-faced Europeans who, 
the astute aborigine perceived, would presently cover his 
royal hunting grounds as the saplings of the forest, and 
become rooted like the kingly oak, yea, even as the tangled 
underbrush which hinders the red deer from roaming until 
scorched by the hunter's torch. 

The blood-red star of the fierce Pequot fell, soon after 
'the redoubtable Lion Gardiner, serving a company of 
patentees, built a fort at Saybrook, in the very midst 
of the haughty, warlike nation of the "Pequttoogs" or 
"Destroyers" as their rivals the Narragansetts called 
them. 

Driven from their forts at Mystic by Captain John Mason 
and Narragansett allies, the Indians concealed themselves 
in swamps near Saybrook. Reluctantly they turned their 
faces toward the setting sun, the land of their enemy, the 
great Mohawk. Swiftly fleeing through the wilderness by 
the great water, the night silence held no terrors for these 
children of the forest. But the hated Uncas, friend of the 
white man, following close on their trail, led the Owanux 
(English) with fearful powder and shot. 

''How fled what moonshine faintly shewed/ 
How fled what darkness hid! 




14 Old Paths of the New England Border 

How fled the earth beneath their feet, 
The heaven above their head!" 

Scott. 



Three hundred men led by Captain Stoughton pursued, 

some by water, some by 
land. The troops pur- 
sued through Menunka- 
tuck, Quinnipiac, Wap- 
owagee, to Unquowa 
(now Fairfield), and sur- 
rounded the tribe in 
Sasqua swamp. It was 
v- ; , the last battle of the 

Pequots. Sassacus es- 
caped only to be be- 
- f ^>-\-~~ : i'^ headed by the Mohawks, 

l:/.^>,/^> ,--;■;' * who, fearing the En- 

:^;\''' - </ glish, sent his head to 

'!'/, \ -• the Great Counsellors at 

7 : ;. v ' ;. Hartford. 

This tragedy was the 
first cause of the settle- 
ment of a fair village. 
The Medicine Man Roger Ludlow, haunted 

A North American Indian from life, by ^Y i ts beautiful 
G. Catlin. The Pequots doubtless wore fields Oil his return to 
similar jcatlicr decorations, although no H/irtford turned a^'lin 
portraits of the tribe are known to be . , 
extant. Wlth wam P um to hu Y 

Fairfield and Norwalk, 
leaving forever the Connecticut Valley. 

One of the prisoners of war, the clever young Indian, 
Cockenoe-de-Long Island (as his biographer, Wm. Wallace 
Tooker, phrases him), was carried off to Dorchester by Ser- 



Cockenoe the Interpreter 



15 



geant Richard Caldicott. The Indian servant's unusual 
wit was discovered by John Eliot, who first learned of him 
Indian words, and armed with the savages' musical meta- 
phors, preached to Waban's tribe at Watertown and from 
his leafy pulpit on Brook Farm, and the Indians answered 
"with multitude of voyces that they all of them did under- 
stand." 1 This showed that "the identity between these 
two dialects [of Eastern Long Island and Massachusetts] 
is closer than exists between either of them and the Narra- 
gansetts of Roger Williams." Cockenoe returned to Long 
Island and became a famous intermediary between the 
Sachems and the leaders of the New Haven Colony. 




To the Fringed Gentian. 
" Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, 
And colored with the heaven's own blue." — Bryant. 

1 Valuable notes of the apostle Eliot's meetings have been contributed 
by Mr. Wilberforce Eames of the Lenox Library to Pilling's Algonquian 

Bibliography. 



SAYBROOK (PASHESHAUKE), 1635 

" We be situated at the mouth of a beautiful river which mceteth the Sea. " — 
Diary of Peace Apsley in A Lady of the Olden Time. 

The future of Saybrook (at the blue Connecticut's 
mouth) once hung on the fate of a small craft, The Bache- 
lor, bound from London to the little town of Boston, and 
scarcely more fit to face old Ocean's frown than a Dutch 
cradle. She carried as passengers Lion Gardiner, his young 
Dutch wife, her maid-servant and one other. 

A few short weeks before, Gardiner was " Engineer and 
Master of Fortifications in the legers of the Prince of Orange," 
and now, through the persuasion of Mr. John Davenport 
and Mr. Hugh Peters at Rotterdam, he had made an agree- 
ment "for $100 per annum for four years in the making of 
a citv or forts of defence" in New England for certain 
Englishmen of high degree and republican opinions. They 
were a small but powerful company of patentees, including 
some distinguished Commoners, with two daring and popular 
men as leaders, — Lord Say and Sele and Richard Greville, 
Lord Brooke, 1 later of "rusty Warwick founded by King 
Cymbeline in the twilight ages." 

These noblemen had sternly resolved to brook no longer 
the despotism of Kings and Courts, but to place the wide 
Atlantic between themselves and the erring throne of the 
faithless Charles; therefore, they had purchased of a lover 



1 The portrait of Richard Greville, second Lord Brooke, hangs in the 
collection of Warwick Castle, the seat of his lineal descendant, the present 
Right Honorable, the Earl of Warwick. This portrait and that of Robert, 
Earl of Warwick, are contained in Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious Per- 
sonages of Great Britain. 

1 6 



Lion Gardiner in the Low Countries 17 

of the Puritans, Robert, Earl of Warwick, 1 his splendid 
American domain (being thf> old patent of Connecticut), 
extending from Narragansett Bay to the South Sea. The 
distinguished engineer, Lieutenant Lion Gardiner, retainer 
of the " Fighting Veres" and officerunder Sir Thomas Fairfax 
in the wars of France with the Low Countries, was engaged 
to build a fort and a city of solid grandeur at Connecticut 
River, whose rich meadows were already celebrated in 
England. In this Dream City, their Carcassonne, where 
one day peace, freedom, and wealth should meet together, 
they saw visions of yonder serene green fields of Saybrook 
crowded with jostling drays loaded with robes of beaver, 
otter, mink, and fox, shipped by successful merchants in 
many-masted ships from Saybrook's creaking wharves. 

Lion Gardiner's birthplace was unknown until recently, 
when his name was found among the retainers of the " Fight- 
ing Veres." Gardiner's fortunes were thus indirectly 
linked with the fortunes of the Fairfaxes of Yorkshire and 
Virginia, as he received his training in the camp of an 
illustrious Fairfax, whose family helped turn the American 
Revolution in our favor, by association with the Wash- 
ington, so that the lustre of the Fairfaxes has become an 
American inheritance. Lion Gardiner's superior officer, 
Sir Thomas Fairfax, became Baron Fairfax of Cameron 
of the Peerage of Scotland. When being instructed in 
fencing, dancing, and mathematics in the camp of Lord 
Vere of Tilbury in Holland, the third and "great" Lord 
Fairfax — "fiery young Tom" — married Catherine, heiress 
of Thomas, Lord Culpeper, acquiring title to the northern 
neck of Virginia. Anne, daughter of Sir William Fairfax, 

1 Robert of Warwick was accused of loving our pilgrim Nonconformists 
too well and not only his house but his pockets were searched for treason- 
able papers by Sir William Beacham, Clerk of the Privy Council. On 
the other hand, Parliament created Warwick Lord High Admiral of 
England, and Governor-in-chief of all English plantations in America. 



1 8 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Collector of Customs on the Potomac, whose home, Belvoir, 
was immediately below Mount Vernon, married Lawrence 
Washington, and his half-brother George was much in- 
fluenced by Thomas Fairfax, a commissioned officer and 
contributor to the Spectator, who, jilted by his lady-love, 
sought seclusion on his American estate. 1 

It was while engaged on the battlements of the quaint 
fortress-town of Woerden on the old Rhine that Gardiner 
met his consort, the sweet Mary Wilemsen of gentle birth, 
being a sister of Prince Garretson "old Burgomeister. " 2 
Verily proud was the plighted one of her sweetheart's 
silver button with the motto, "Long live the Prince of 
Orange." 3 Especially when they strolled among their 
acquaintance in the flower-market, where Lion would 
offer her a pot of Bloomendaal's rarest tulips, that turban 
flower over which all Holland had gone mad. (You may 
still find to-day Woerden's flower-market a mass of color 
in crisp head-dresses and sweet-scented blooms, while 
Gardiner's defiant, picturesque ramparts stand but as shells 
of a past glory. Woerden has been twice sacked by the 
French and little Woerden's surrender to Louis XIV. was 
so pathetic that the Master Voltaire wrote it down.) 



1 The story of charming Sally Fairfax of Virginia is contained in Bel- 
haven Tales, by Constance Cary Harrison. Mrs. Burton Harrison is one 
of the Fairfaxes and in her New York house are many memorials of 
them. A picture of the Alexandria town-house of Lord Thomas Fairfax 
of Virginia is included in Fascinatiitg Washington. J. F. Jarvis, "Washing- 
ton, D. C. 

2 Upon the blank leaf of one of Lion Gardiner's Bibles is written cf 
Alary Wilemsen, "her mother's name was Hachir, and her aunt, sister 
of her mother, was the wife of Wouter Leanerdson, old Berger Muster 
dwelling in the hostrade, over against the Bruser in the L T nicorne's head: 
her brother's name was Prince Garretson, also old Berger Muster. " 

3 This silver button is reproduced in Mrs. Lamb's delightful sketch, 
"The Manor of Gardiner's Island," in the American Magazine of History, 
Vol. 13. 



From Holland to Saybrook 19 

One day, when the hyacinths, anemonies, and tulips 
of all Holland were calling softly in a thousand tones to 
sweethearts to wander over perfumed, beckoning garden 
paths, came imperative summons to Gardiner to hasten 
the new undertaking "at Pequot river or Conectecutt. " 
The honeymoon was passed on the voyage to London. 
Then followed trials by sea, for these brave and loving 
souls were storm-tossed three months and seven days, 
ere The Bachelor sighted Hull's rocky head rising above 
Nantasco's beacon sands, and tacked into the haven o 1 " 
Boston harbor late in November, 1635. Governor 
John Winthrop the Elder wrote in his Diary: "Her pas- 
sengers and goods l are here all safe through the Lord's 
great Providence." John Winthrop the Younger, ap- 
pointed agent of the patentees, impatiently awaited Gar- 
diner at the wharf, having arrived some weeks previous 
from England with his commission as Governor of "the 
places at Connecticut river." 

A warm welcome was meted out to the celebrated en- 
gineer newly arrived from the Low Countries by the many 
worthies of the little town of Boston. Governor Thomas 
Dudley, Mr. Haynes, Mr. Ludlow, Sir Henry Vane, Mr. 
Bellingham, Mr. Coddington, and more entreated him to 
advise about fortifications on Fort Hill and at Salem. 
Gardiner's impregnable fort-to-be 1 in the Connecticut 
Colony was a Godsend to these men whose friends had 
just gone out with Hooker from Newtown (Cambridge) 
into the Connecticut wilderness. The magistrates were 
much concerned for their safety, having received ill-news 
from an Indian runner concerning plots against the English, 
win > as yet possessed no stout garrisons at Hartford, Windsor, 
or Wethersfield. 

1 Gardiner's freight for the fort include:! two drawbridges, staple hooks 
for a portcullis, and a wheelbarrow without handles. 



20 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



Winthrop had previously sent Lieutenant Gibbons and 
Sergeant Willard " to take possession of the River's mouth " ; 
they tore down the arms of the States-General which the 
Dutch had fastened on a tree at Kievit's Hook, changed 
the name to Point Saybrooke, and began "to build houses 
against the spring." Grateful shelters these were, for 



• ;■ . 



If^KwPW 



! '' fe^V*1 







Old Mil I -St one, So. yb rook Point 
Said to have been brought over from Holland by Lion Gardiner. 

Mistress Gardiner caught her first glimpse of the new h< ime 
at Saybrook Point, hedged in by drifting snow. ("The 
weather this morning is cold enough for an Esquimaux pur- 
gatory — terrible. What did the old Pilgrims mean be- 
coming here?" once said Whittier.) 

The unusual bitter cold seemed particularly vexatious 
when their first Saturday's baking would not rise above 
the pans; the young housekeeper often left her shining 
kitchen to watch the men hurriedly completing the palisade, 
now and then beating their frost -bitten hands; a sentinel 
pacing before the gate was ready to challenge with his 



Saybrook Point 2 1 

snaphance red man or Dutch, who had planted a trading 
station on the river north, their "House of Hope" 1 (Dutch 
Point, Hartford). 

April stripped the lovely peninsula of her ornaments 
of ice crystals and Saybrook Point put on a necklace of 
blue water. In early morning's soft air on the green cliff 
above white sands, Shelley might have found inspiration for 
his Triumph of Life, or Charles d 'Orleans for a Spring Carol : 

"Old Time has cast his robe away, 
Of wind and icy cold and rain. 
And is in raiment clad again 
Of warmest sun and brightest day. 
There is no beast but is at play, 
No bird but sings the joyous strain; 
Old Time has cast his robe away, 
Of wind and icy cold and- rain." 2 

When the trailing arbutus wove its pink carpet of blossoms 
in Saybrook, Mistress Gardiner looked eagerly across the 
ramparts for vessels with news from home, and for one 
flying the English flag, with the promised "300 able men" 
on board to fortify, till the soil, and build houses, ere the 
"men of quality" should arrive to occupy the great squares 
of the future city. 

"But," Gardiner says, "Our great expectation at the 



1 Whereby the Dutch lay claim to all Connecticut. A message of 
the Director-General from present New York, dated 'Slay, 1638, 
outlines the Dutch claims. "I, Wm. Kieft, Director General of New 
Netherland, residing in the Island of Manhattan, in the Fort Am- 
sterdam under the Government that appertains to the High and Mighty 
States-General of the United Netherlands and of the West India Com- 
pany, privileged in the Senate Chamber of Amsterdam, make known: 
That the Connecticut has been our property for years; occupied by our 
Fort [Fort of Good Hope], and sealed with our blood. " 

2 From Le Temps a laissc sou Manteau by Charles d'Orleans (15th 
century). Translated by Clara Linforth West and Edward Oliphant. 



22 Old Paths of the New England Border 

River's mouth came to only two men, viz : Mr. Fenwick 
[one of the patentees] and his man, who came with Mr. 
Hugh Peters, and Mr. Oldham and Thomas Stanton 1 the 
Indian interpreter." 

Gardiner, the diplomat, — as remarkable in solving the 
problems of pioneers and savages as the rare Winthrop, who 
mediated successfully with kings, 2 — would have postponed 
war with the Pequots until the whites were stronger, by 
accepting their presents of wampum and skin-coats, for 
killing Captain Stone, a Virginian, on the Connecticut, 
but the blundering shortsightedness of the rulers at "The 
Bay" had "raised the wind" by sending Endicott with 
troops thither. Unhappily, his Indian interpreter, Kitchi- 
makin, forwarded boastfully a Pequot scalp to Canonicus. 
the Narragansett Chief, who passed the trophy derisively 
from Sachem to Sachem, enraging the Pequots to frenzy: 
this was the prime cause of the Pequot war. 

The maddened Pequots pestered Saybrook Fort like 
wasps. No one dared venture outside the garden pales 
to fish, or hunt the plentiful ducks, geese, and turkeys, 



1 Thomas Stanton became a famous interpreter for the Colonies and 
made purchases from the Indians, notably of East Hampton from the 
four Sachems of Eastern Long Island, as intermediary "for Theophilus 
Eaton, Esq., Governor of the Colony of New Haven, and Edward Hopkins 
Esq., Governor of the Colony of Connecticut." 

2 John Winthrop, Jr., in whom Bancroft says, "the elements of human 
excellence were mingled in happiest union, " obtained the Charter of 
Connecticut from Charles II. Winthrop was Governor for one year of 
the plantation of Saybrook and his granddaughter married Judge Samuel 
Lynde of that town. Winthrop first met Gardiner in an official capacity; 
they became warm friends and a brisk correspondence was carried 
on between the two island proprietors — Winthrop on Fisher's Island and 
Gardiner on his lordship of the Isle of Wight (Gardiner's Island). Their 
letters are among the 1 YintJirop Papers, preserved first on Fisher's Island 
where the Winthrop homestead held six generations, then by the New 
London Winthrops, then by Robert G. Winthrop of Boston, and pub- 
lished by the Massachusetts Historical Society. 



Cornfield Point 23 

because of murders by Pequots. Lieutenant Gardiner 
dreads "Capt. Hunger " 1 more than foreign potent enemy 
and expects daily to lose that precious three acres of bread 
at Cornfield Point, "two miles from home"; the lives of all 
Connecticut actually hung on those ripening ears. The 
traveller visiting historic Cornfield Point is reminded of that 
cornfield in Plymouth grown by the aid of Squanto's fish 
which saved the Pilgrims from starvation that first winter. 
Plymouth and Saybrook had good cause to celebrate a 
Thanksgiving feast at green earing and harvest, after the 
custom of the tribes who believe Indian corn to be a gift 
direct from the Great Spirit. 

It was at this juncture that Gardiner returned a messenger 
to the Bay bearing "as a token" the rib of one of his men 
pierced half through by an arrow to convince incredulous 
magistrates at Boston that Indian arrows were deadly,— 
indisputable, gruesome testimony indeed! 

Gardiner had placed five lusty men with long guns to 
guard the corn. Three foolhardy men disobeyed orders, 
left the Strong House, and went "a fowling" to their un- 
doing. The savages lying low let the soldiers pass, and 
on their return loaded with game, shot all three. One 

1 Gardiner, in forcible, piquant language warns slumbering government 
concerning predicaments of new settlements, some being as helpless as 
babes in sw r addling clothes: "War is like a three-footed stool, want one 
foot and down comes all; and these three feet are men, victuals, and 
munition, therefore, seeing in peace you are likely to be famished, what 
will or can be done if war?" 

He concludes his relation of necessary stratagems in the blind contest 
of savage warfare with these lines: "And thus I wrote, that young men 
may learn if they should meet with such trials as we met with these [at 
Saybrook Fort] and have not opportunity to cut off their enemies, yet 
they may, with such pretty pranks, preserve themselves from danger, 
for policy is needful in wars as well as strength. " — Gardiner's 
Pcquot Warres. 




Polishing Gran'ther's Powder-Horn 



24 



The Pequot Torch 



-D 



escaped," two they tormented" as fiends invent torture. The 
survivors rowed hastily back across the South Cove with 
the ill news: the troops rescued a part of the corn before 
the Pequots razed all buildings outside the palisade. 

Gardiner himself was attacked, but saved by his buff 
coat with a steel corselet and steel cap, a part of an English 
soldier's armor: it was worn also by Gardiner's contem- 
porary, Captain Miles Standish, the hero of the first and 
only encounter of the Pilgrims with the Indians. Gardiner 
scented danger and called to his men firing reeds to come 
away, but they would not till they had burnt all their brim- 
stone matches. Four Indians started out of the fiery reeds 
and Sentinel Robert Chapman cried out, "India's in the 
marsh on the other side!" Gardiner and his men, almost 
surrounded, retreated in a half-moon, exchanging shots. 
Later the Pequots, approaching on pretence of a parley, 
were startled to see Gardiner unhurt, and believed he had 
a charmed life, not understanding the efficacy of a white 
man's coat as a fender of arrows, though they knew well 
the bark of his musket. 

That summer Mistress Gardiner rocked her young child, 
David, 1 with anxious brow, because treacherous Pequots 
ever lurked in the long salt grass outside the garden pales. 
Even the soft lapping of waves on the short sands i ailed 
to soothe in the night stillness. Silence seemed ever to 
warn, to be a forerunner of attack. 

The Pequots attempted again and again to use the torch, 
and then, if ever, Gardiner knew dismay when he thought 
of little Davicl; he tells us of "pretty pranks" to prevent 
the savages "from firing our redoubt and batten'." Three 
great doors were placed outside the fort, "being bored full 

1 David Gardiner was the first white child born in Connecticut, and, 
like his father, became Worshipful Lord of the Isle of Wight (Gardiner's 
Isle). David's youngest sister, Elizabeth, born on Gardiner's Island, was 
the first English child born in the State of Xew York. 



26 Old Paths of the New England Border 

of holes and driven full of long nails as sharp as awl blades, 
sharpened by Thomas Hurlburt ... in a dry time 
and a dark night" the Pequots came as before, and found 
the way a little too sharp for them, — as they skipped from 
one, they trod upon another, and left the nails and doors 
dyed with their blood. 

This episode of the " Pequot warres " is of the color of the 
old ballad of Lilliput Town, in which little Harold's 
harrow upsets the Giant's calculations: that cruel, crafty 
fox who, having devoured "the sheep with the wool on their 
backs — the fowls and the cock-turkey," vowed next to eat 
the babes "so plump and small." 

"And every father took his sword, 
And sharpened it on a stone; 
But little Harold said never a word, 
Having a plan of his own. 

He laid six harrows outside the stile 

That led to the village green; 
Then on them a little hay did pile, 

For the prongs not to be seen. 

A toothsome sucking-pig he slew, 

And thereby did it lay: 
For why? Because young Harold knew 

The Giant would pass that way. 

The horses were being buckled in, 
The little ones looked for a ride,— 

When on came the Giant, as ugly as Sin, 
With a terrible six- yard stride. 

Now, left foot, right foot, step it again, 

He trod on — the harrow spikes— 
And how he raged and roared with pain, 

He may describe who likes!" 



Charles I. and the Patentees 27 

The savage cloud was about to disperse. In April, 1637, 
the fort was relieved by Captain John Underhill, and May 
10th another famous warrior, Captain John Mason, and 
Lieutenant Seely fell down the river to Saybrook on board 
a pink and a pinnace. 

We take leave for the moment of Saybrook Fort watching 
daily for English ships, that we may enter the Court of 
Charles Stuart, in "Our Old Home," out of whose civil 
quarrels and cruel tyrannies many a sweet and peaceful 
village in New England came into being. Affairs ap- 
proached boiling point between King and disaffected nobles. 
The date of sailing of Saybrook's patentees was postponed 
again and again, for the god-fathers of the plantation, 
Viscount Say and Sele and Lord Brooke precipitated open 
rebellion by refusing in the King's presence to sign his 
required pledge of obedience. Charles dismissed the two 
refractory courtiers to their houses, and soon after the 
Scottish rebellion began. Lord Brooke was appointed 
general of the rebel forces of Warwick and Strafford, and 
distinguished himself at Edgehill. Yet our two ambitious 
colonizers did not forget their god-child over seas, and many 
a night in the English camp they built castles 1 of inde- 
pendence on Connecticut River, — air castles indeed for 
them, but realities to later generations. Saybrook garrison 
watched in vain for its noble patrons detained by em- 
broilments in England. 

Reports came that a ship had weighed anchor in the 
Thames for New England with three of the patentees 

' Sir Richard Saltonstall had returned from founding Watertown with 
enthusiastic accounts, and fitted out a ship to feed the infant Connecticut. 
The Connecticut River was then believed to be the best channel to com- 
mand the free trade of Canada, a Northern Eldorado, and they counted 
on Iroquois and Abenakis to paddle in fur-laden canoes down the St. 
Lawrence, over lake (Champlain) and river (Winooski or Onion River), 
and follow the Connecticut to the sea at Saybrook. 



28 



Old Paths of the New England Border 






aboard — John Hampden, Pym, and Heslerigge — and Hamp- 
den's first cousin, Oliver Cromwell 1 — all marked men; yet 
before her sails caught a free wind, Destiny's messenger 
hailed them with the Council's royal decree, forbidding the 
fleet to leave England. Had these powerful enemies of 
royalty left the United Kingdom to embrace America's 

colonies at this cri- 
sis, what history 
might have written 
of two worlds, none 
may conjecture. To- 
day, at Saybrook 
Point, west of Black 
Horse Tavern and 
just north of where 
the old fort's "big 
guns" once swept 
the horizon, some 
one will point out to 
you "the Cromwell 
Place," reserved for 
Oliver Cromwell, 
a charming spot 
commanding both 
river and Long 
Island Sound, and 
set nigh to other 
great squares des- 
tined for his illus- 
eompatriots. Saybrook named her first ship of 




On Long Island Sound, igoj 



trious 



1 At this date, so little was Cromwell known to some, that on listening 
to his speech in Commons, Lord Digby asked Hampden who the sloven 
was; and was answered that "if there should come a breach with the 
King, that sloven would be the greatest man in England. " 



Lady Fenwick ^9 

twenty-four guns the Oliver Cromwell; Pettipaug's Point in 
the Borough of Essex where she was built by Mr. Uriah 
Hayden in 1775, was attacked during the War of 18 12 by a 
part of the British squadron blockading New London; 
British launches carrying twelve-pound carronades brought 
away twenty-two of Saybrook's vessels from river and 
coves. 

Gardiner, desiring independence, purchased the beautiful 
Island of Mackonake of the Indians and departed to his 
eminent domain, unhampered by colonial dissensions. 

At Savbrook fort a new reign opened, that of Colonel 
Fenwick's stately young wife, the sunny-haired Lady Alice 
Apsley Bouteler. In the interval between serious colonial 
affairs, Fenwick, now Governor, fashioned for my lady's 
pleasure a walled garden rich in roses, daffodils, and poppies 
of England, and here she planted seeds and medicinal 
herbs given to her by hospitable acquaintance in Master 
Hooker's church at Hartford, where their little Elizabeth 
was baptized. Fenwick writes to Governor Winthrop of 
Massachusetts in 1639 : "I am lastly to thank you kindly on 
my wife's behalf for your great dainties; we both delight much 
in that primitive employment of dressing a garden, and the 
taste of good fruits in these parts, gives us good encouragement, 
we both tender our love and respect." Often my Lady Alice 
was seen with her favorite "shooting-gun" riding with 
mounted escort, beyond Gardiner's corn-mill and the outer 
palisade which then fenced off the Neck at its narrowest 
part from cove to cove, the waters being more nigh to each 
•other than now. The path she followed was the present 
highway to Saybrook and in sight of " Obed's hammock, " 
an Indian village. Pursuing the trail to Cornfield Point 
she gloated over hosts of pink marshmallows, 1 though never 

1 There are rare wild flowers about Saybrook, the Spiranthes vernalis 
■and other orchids. — Studies on the Family Orchidacetz by Oakes Ames, A.M ., 



;o 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



had she tasted the root in confection. Again, the Fenwicks 
paid passing gay visits by boat to Mrs. Anna Wolcott 
Griswold at Blackhall, or to the Governor of Connecticut, 

John Winthrop, Jr., 
at Fisher's Island, 
off Pequot (New 
London ) . The ladies 
compared household 
notes, for in the 
wilderness, the fash- 
ion of the latest far- 
thingale or dinner 
service mattered 
little, whereas, in 
this monstrous 
changeable New 
England climate, it 
was exceeding diffi- 
cult to discreetly 
clothe and feed their 
babes. 

Merry Lady Alice was most often seen amidst her flowers 
singing blithely old madrigals, while Elizabeth and Dor- 
othy played with her pet rabbits ; even staid Dr. Thomas 
Peters ' (who succeeded Master John Higginson as Fort 
Chaplain) amused himself in feeding the rabbits as he 
took counsel with my lady on church affairs, for the 
Fenwicks were staunch Puritans. 




The Tomb of Lady Alice Fenwich in t!u 
Burying Ground at Saybrook Point. 



Old 



illustrated in the Ames Botanical Laboratory by Blanche Ames. Hough- 
ton, Mifflin, and Company. 

1 Dr. Thomas Peters, a brother of Hugh Peters (or Peter), was driven 
out of England by the royalist forces, and after a short stay at Saybrook 
preached at Pequot, now New London. He acted as physician also. 
Noted clerical physicians were Rev. Jared Eliot of Killingworth, Rev.. 



Old Point Burying-Ground 31 

Colonel Fenwick gave over to Connecticut Colony in 1644 
the rights of the old Warwick patent, to pay for which, 
Connecticut imposed tolls on all exports of grain and skins 
passing Saybrook Fort to sea : this caused the first contro- 
versy between Massachusetts and Connecticut : being carried 
to the General Court, Plymouth and New Haven repre- 
sentatives decided in Connecticut's favor, whereupon the 
Massachusetts Court determined to collect tolls from all 
other colonies for the maintenance of the fort at Boston. 
Fenwick returned to England to become Governor of 
Leith and Edinburgh Castle. 

Colonel Fenwick left behind forever his sweet English 
lady sleeping within the ramparts of the Connecticut 
stronghold; his friend Matthew Griswold, whose grant of 
land at Blackhall lay across the river's mouth at Lyme, 
watched over Lad)' Fenwick's tomb erected by Fenwick's 
nephew-in-law, Benjamin Batten of Boston. 1 

For more than two centuries after the burning of the 
fort in 1647 Lady Fenwick's rude yet beautiful monument 
landmarks: At "The Point." of Connecticut sandstone stood 

Site of Lion Gardiner's Fort, burned 1 . . 

1647. Rebuilt on New Fort Hiii. alone in the wind-swept grassy 

Old Burying Ground Cypress Ceme- bluff f « Tomb Hm " ^ t} 

tery. Boulder on the first site of 

Yale College, begun at Saybrook. Valley Railroad intruded On this 

End of Wat;r Street is the George _ -. 

Pratt house, residence of Mrs. loveliest Ot peninsulas the llldeOUS 

Amelia ^aham. Willoughby and unsvm p at hetic sheds Of COH1- 
Lynde Richard Dickinson house, - L 

residence Captain John Rankin. mei'Ce ', theil it Was remOVed With 
Black Horse Tavern (about 1700), . 

built by John Burrows, property ceremony to the shadowy yard 

of Mrs. M S. Potter. Plaster is of aboye Q^^ CV p resseS " sta n, 1 
burnt oyster shells; old circular - ' 

fireplace was 9 ft. 6 inches, chim- guard over the forefathers, and 

ney of English bricks. James . . , -. . - ., 

Ingraham, Wickstroff House ; the WaVCS ' toll the knell 01 



Gershom Bulkeley of Xew London and Wethersfield, Rev. Phineas Fisk 
of Haddam, and Rev. Stephen Holmes of Pautapaug. Rev. Hugh Peters 
succeeded Roger Williams at Salem. A step-daughter of the famous Hugh 
Peters was the second wife of Winthrop the Younger. 

i The Lady of the Olden Time, by Emily Malbone Morgan. 



32 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



parting day" whilst lines from 
the great Elegy steal into the 
heart; our American sod would 
offer new and strange themes 
for the poet inspired by Stoke 
Pogis, for here at the Point 
burying-ground lies a son of 
Uncas, Sachem, who requested 
in his will that he be "buried 
like the white man." 

Yonder is a memorial to John 
Whittlesey, the pioneer, who built 
his homestead at Saybrook Ferry 
(there is also the homestead of 
the Ayres family, who first re- 
sided at Saybrook Point, on the 
site of Union Chapel, opposite 
the Cromwell lot) . 

Here rise monuments to Priest 
Hart 1 and his successor Parson 
Hotchkiss; the curious, old-style 
biographical epitaph to Rev. 
Azariah Mather (a grand-nephew 
of Increase Mather and grandson 
of Robert Treat, 1 685-1 736) ends 
with these lines: 

"Haveiug the Wings of earth 
and Love 
And feathers of an holy Dove, 
He bid tli is wretched world 
adieu 



Cromwell's lot, so-called, opposite 
the Union Chapel, which stands 
on site of Ayres Homestead. On old 
"Middle Lane," now Church Street, 
leading from Saybrook Village 
to Saybrook Point, stood the first 
church and house of Minister 
Buckingham, prominent in the 
Yale foundation. Several anniver- 
sary exercises probably held at this 
"Parsonage at the Point." Pali- 
sade built from cove to cove at 
narrowest part of Neck. Here 
from the " Point Road " is view, 
of " Obed's hammock " (hummock), 
one of Old Saybrook's three Indian 
vi.lages. Captain John Mason lived 
on Middle Lane and married daugh- 
ter of Minister Fitch of Norwich. 
Old Buckingham house " at the 
bend" (about 1725). Property of 
Mrs. Amy Butler. Congregational 
Church, present building erected in 
1835. Organized in the "great 
hall" of Saybrook fort in 1646. 
Humphrey Pratt Tavern (about 
1785), property of Samuel Pratt. 
Major-General William Hart house 
(.1767), property of Washington 
Berrian, Esq., and summer residence 
of Oliver Eaton Cromwell, Esq., a 
descendant of Governor Theophilus 
Eaton, the friend of Cromwell. 
Richard E. Pratt homestead (1800), 
opposite Post-office on Oyster 
River Road or road to Westbrook. 
Thomas Acton homestead (1801J. 
Residence of the Misses Acton. 
Thomas Acton was Chairman of 
Police Commissioners in time of 
War Riots in New York, and head 
of the Sub-Treasury. Parson 

Hotchkiss house. Site of Captain 
Elisha Hart mansion, opposite. 
Rev. Azariah Mather house (1726). 
The second church building was 
erected on the Green during his 
pastorate. The mother of Azariah 
Mather was Hannah, daughter of 
Robert Treat, Governor of the 

1 The interesting group of stones to the Harts were restored by Mrs. 
Samuel Colt of Hartford. The oldest stone in the yard decipherable is 
to Susanna Lynde, 1685, situated on the west side. At this point is a 
superb view looking across South Cove, to Light House Point at Fenwick; 



The Hart Homestead, Saybrook 33 



colony. Dr. Eliot house (i 74 s) And swiftly up to heaven flew. 

residence of Mrs. William Butter- . . . 

field. Amos Sheffield house. Rich- Disturb )10t theft his preClOUS DllSt, 

ard Tucker house, on road to With censors that are most unjust." 

Westbrook. Upper Cemetery founded 

1787. Whittlesey and Richardson -» T • ,-. ... 11 t-> • 

houses at Ferry Point. Indian Neither are these all Puritans, 

Burying-Ground one mile above ag m ight be expected : VOnder 
Ferry Point on the Connecticut. # J 

r. Kirtiand - Nathan Southworth slab is dedicated to the fairest 

house U7Q9J, Deep River Station, r ,1 rr l '.i 11 

residence Mr. Horace S. Phelps. 0± the Hart SISterS, Who became 

Lieutenant William Pratt sold lands a null, aild having beeil brought 

in Hartford, removed to Potapaug 1 . . 

quarter of Saybrook. Four of Indian home Irom Rome, WaS buried 

settlements in Saybrook: at Oyster ^^ the sevy { ce Q f the Church of 
River, at Obed s hammock near 

mouth of the Pochaug, at Ayer*s England. Her sister in yonder 

Point, and Chester. , 1 . . , , . 

enclosure was the betrothed ol 
Bolivar, it was rumored, he having been hopelessly smitten 
with her beauty, as he saw her on the deck of the frigate 
United States, commanded by her brother-in-law, Com- 
modore Hull. 

When the Hart homestead was in its prime, Saybrook 
was celebrated as the home of the seven brilliant daughters 
of Captain Elisha Hart, their mother being the beautiful 
Jeannette McCurdy of Lyme. Two of the daughters, doubt- 
less inherited an admiration for exploits on the sea, as they 
yielded their hearts, respectively, to Commodore Isaac 
Hull and his nephew, Commodore Joseph Hull. [His 
daughter Florence was widely admired for her beauty and 
charming hospitality in her native city, Philadelphia.] 
Two other sisters married, respectively, the Rev. Dr. Jarvis 
of St. Paul's Church, Boston, and the Hon. Heman Allen, 
our minister to South America. 

The once merry house was bolted and barred after Cap- 
tain Hart's death and believed to be haunted until it leaked 
out that the caretaker kept a calf in the cellar. 

Vastly prominent in Yale's foundation was Saybrook's 
Minister Buckingham. In his parsonage were held Yale's 

north is the historic Cornfield Point of Lion Gardiner. 
3 



34 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



earliest Commencements and the four days' discussion of 
the Trustees in 1701. They opened the doors of the Col- 
legiate School of Connecticut in "Back Lane" — now 
"The Point" highway, in a one-story building donated by 




The Tin-pcdlcr's Cart en route to Westbrook. 

On the left is the lean-to of the Lord homestead, residence of Dr. William 

Kclsey, a descendant. 

Saybrook's large landholder, Nathaniel Lynde, grandson 
of the Earl of Digby. When the College was to be removed 
to New Haven, Saybrook objected as spiritedly to giving 
up her honors, as when Governor Edmund Andros at- 



The Black Horse Tavern 35 

tempted to annex her to New York in 1675. Saybrook 
citizens protested at yielding the library until forced by 
the appearance of the Governor and entire Council. A 
guard was set to protect the wagons provided to carry off 
the books, but in the morning they were found broken and 
the horses set loose ; moreover the bridges on the New Haven 
turnpike cut away, On surmounting these difficulties many 
books were found missing, including some which cemented 
the foundation ceremony in Branford. 

"The Point," with its aforetime Wastoll's Inn facing the 
training-green, was the busiest corner of Saybrook in old 
boating days, when all traffic was by water, and turnpikes 
unknown. On the river front Black Horse Tavern over- 
flowed in the open season, for the coasting and up-river 
trade obliged Landlord Burrows to crowd his long upper 
room with mattresses, while huge logs crackled in the nine- 
foot six-inch fireplaces upstairs and down. In the eight- 
eenth century Blague's and Tully's wharves and Doty's 
bake-shop swarmed with dark-browed sailors from the 
West Indies. The picturesque Tavern is staunch to-day 
in its hand-hewn beams, burnt oyster-shell plaster, and 
chimney of English bricks, in spite of some two hundred 
spring freshets tossing ice floes against its foundations, 
propelled from the Crystal Hills of New Hampshire. The 
sign of the Black Horse no longer swings to entreat the 
traveller; nevertheless, the enchanting prospect across 
the Great River's mouth, ruffled by a soft summer wind 
from the sea beyond Montauk, compels him to linger 
wistfully. Light crafts are passing over dangerous reefs 
of sand, renewed ever by the drift of the tides from east 
to west through the tunnel between Long Island and "the 
main." Were not the Connecticut's mouth filled by sand, 
preventing the entrance of heavy cargoes, Saybrook would 
be an important seaport. Above Blackhall the spire of 



o 



6 Old Paths of the New England Border 



Old Lyme shows itself among the trees. Alongshore are 

"Old brown piers, 
The haunt of seamen 
Spent in years. " 

Hartford steamers "touched" just below the old Pratt 
house, the home of Mrs. Amelia Ingraham, who well re- 
members the Fenwiek house burned long ago. At the 
Tully homestead, now "Heartsease," The Lady of the 
Olden Time ( Lady Fenwiek ) was written by Emily 
Malbone Morgan. 

Mostly deep-sea captains owned these gambrel roofs 
and bartered fish for corn, ground between the Holland 
stones of Gardiner's mill. One, Captain Mather, who 
possessed a just pride in his family tree, commanded the 
bark Peace and Plenty. She was hailed by a vessel, and 
asked the name of her captain; the answer came back, 
"Captain Rogers Selden Mather" — the other called out, 
"We don't want the names of the whole blasted crew, sir." 

In the days of cottage prayer-meetings at "The Point" 
one hundred years ago, a lady directed her servant to go 
to each neighbor and say that Mrs. Bowles will have the 
prayer-meeting here to-night. She carried out instructions 
to the letter: "Mrs. Bowles says the prayer-meeting will be 
here to-night," and each lady put on her best gown, ar- 
ranged her chairs, and made ready for the coming of the 
Parson ; in consequence there was no meeting at all. 

In the church built on the Green in 1680, a Connecticut 
Synod adopted the celebrated "Saybrook Platform" of 
1708. Some years ago, a fisherman met a farmer driving 
a wagon-load of whitefish for his rye and potato fields: 
"Say, Cap., what is this 'Saybrook Platform' they talk 
about?" " Saybrook Platform, Squire? — why, I guess its 
that old platform down yonder, they used to clean fish on." 

The name of Chapman is still rooted in Old Saybrook. 



Ye West Parish of Saybrook 37 

Robert Chapman, Gardiner's loving friend and Deputy to 
the General Court for forty-three sessions, selected the 
charming " Oyster River Quarter "for his homestead, having 
received a land grant for public service in the Colony of 
Saybrook ; on a pane of glass he scratched : 

"In 1636, / here appeared, 
In 1666, / this upreared." 

It was Captain Robert Chapman and the diplomatic 
Captain Thomas Bull, commander of Saybrook Fort, who 
circumvented the tyrant Andros without a blow. 

The first minister of ye West Parish of Saybrook — at 
a salary of £50 and fire-wood — was the Rev. William 
Worthington l a grandson of Nicholas whose estates near 
Liverpool had been confiscated because of his part in the 
Cromwellian wars. The minister's slim salary at West- 
brook appears to have been all sufficient as the pastorate 
of Dr. Worthington and his successor the Rev. John De- 
votion covered together seventy-seven years. 

The first corn-mill on Oyster River was built in 1662 by 
Francis Bushnell, the ancestor of Horace Bushnell; David 
Bushnell, born in Westbrook, was the inventor of the first 
submarine boat, the American Turtle, built at Saybrook 
Ferry. By mistake it blew up an American schooner in- 
stead of the British man-of-war Cerberus, successfully dem- 
onstrating that gunpowder could be exploded under water. 

A Valley Forge officer, a son of the Richard Lord lean-to 

1 The Rev. William Worthington married first a granddaughter of the 
victorious Major John Mason, and second Temperance Gallup of Ston- 
ington whose wedding is described as being celebrated with "broad 
spirit and good cheer" at Mr. Wm. Gallup's ample estate on the left 
bank of the Mystic River— " White Hall Farm." The motto of the 
Worthington arms borne in Lancashire, reads, "worthy by the virtues 
of their ancestors. " William Worthington of Hartford and Colchester 
served in the (Turner's) Falk Fight. A member of this generation is 
the Rt. Rev. George Worthington, Bishop of Nebraska. 



38 Old Paths of the New England Border 

(built 177 1) on "Oyster River Road, " sold his Saybrook 
lands to provide shoes for his regiment: Lafayette is said 
to have recognized him on the occasion of the festival made 
for him at the Pratt Tavern, and embraced his comrade 
in arms for auld lang syne. 

The pleasant white homestead at the corner of Main 
Street and Oyster River Road was the home of Captain 
Morgan, that one of our winning masters of merchant 
ships endowed with a "genial earnestness " which Dickens 
says "does me good to think of." Captain Morgan was 
introduced to Dickens by his intimate friend Leslie of the 
Royal Academy. 

Dickens apprised Captain Morgan that he is the original 
of his hero Captain Jorgan in .4 Message jrom the Sea: 
"Here and there in the description of the sea-going hero, 
I have given a touch of somebody you know ; very heartily 
desiring that thousands of people may have some faint 
reflection of the pleasure I have for years derived from the 
contemplation of a most amiable nature and most remark- 
able man." 

Young Mr. Morgan was a constant visitor at Gad's Hill. 
Miss Ruth Morgan is said to be the heroine of Mrs. Warner's 
Say and Seal. 

North of the Congregational Church (the fourth building) 
is the eighteenth-century home of gallant Major-General 
William Hart, an original purchaser in the great Western 
Reserve of Ohio; hospitable and fascinating it is, with two 
huge ovens, one over the other, odd and innumerable 
cupboards, ghost-like closets, yet remodelled in marvellous 
manner to modern requirements, without losing the flavor 
of its history or its original architecture. 

The house built in 1785 by Parson Hotchkiss, who married 
Miss Amelia Hart, faces also the wide street of Old Saybrook; 
at the door opening into the garden, you remark some half- 



Saybrook Church on the Green 



39 



circular stone steps hollowed by the feet of generations, 
and the same by which the worthy man entered his old 
"Church on the Green" for nigh sixty years. Four pews in 
its gallery troubled much the Ecclesiastical Society. The 
east pews were restricted to young women and the west to 
young men, yet the young men and maidens would get 
together for entertainment. Finally a division fence was 
built in the aisle, and a law made that "the females shall 




he Jwmestead of Captain Elislia Hart which stood on Old Saybrook' s street. 
home of the seven beautiful sisters. 



The 



not occupy the two westernmost pews, and the males shall 
not occupy the two easternmost pews, and every person 
guilty of a breach of same shall forfeit three dollars and 
thirty-four cents to the Society." 

Saybrook's importance was early increased on becoming 
the "half-way stop" for the Boston "post." One morning 
in 1673, the ferryman of the lower Connecticut answered 



4-o Old Paths of the New England Border 

the horn from the Lyme shore, and welcomed the first 
regular postman between Boston and New York; he "drew 
rein" before Saybrook's tavern on Middle Lane and ex- 
changed " portmantles " of few letters and many small 
parcels with the Haarlem post. Verily this was a red- 
letter day for every farmer, merchant, blacksmith, and 
cobbler between the Charles and Hudson rivers; mine 
host chuckled, for he "calk'lated" that the regular post 
would bring some patronage to his door. 

No such thrill had swept from the village store to the 
Point wharves, since thirteen years before, when farewells 
had been exchanged on the Green with Parson Fitch and 
half his congregation who went out to Norwich to take up 
beautiful farm-lands bordering the Shetucket and Nyantic 
rivers; thereafter the postman once a month unlocked the 
mail-box (the beginning of the New York post-office) at 
the office of the Secretary of the Colony of New York, and 
rode to Saybrook, noted for its garrisoned fort, its courage- 
ous deep-sea captains, its excellent fish. (Though in truth, 
at Saybrook Point that man was looked down upon who 
ate shad at his own table, just as on the Merrimack River, 
the hired man's contract with the farmer stated that he 
should not be obliged to eat despised salmon more than 
three times a week.) 

In 1660, with Parson Fitch, the Saybrook families of 
Huntington, Larrabee, Hyde, Backus, Bliss, and Bucld 
founded Norwich, Conn. Saybrook's daring Ensign Leffing- 
well had won these Norwich lands by saving the besieged 
and starving Mohegans from the Narragansetts' clutches. 
Loading beef, corn, and peas into an open boat, Leffingwell 
secretly entered the Uncas fortress. This rescue was of 
untold importance; had Uncas surrendered to Miantono- 
moh, the mighty plot hatched by the Narragansetts might 
have succeeded — first to destroy Uncas, and last to unite 



An Old Saybrook Tavern 



4i 



Mohawk, Iroquois, and all the tribes against the English, 
"the man with the beaver-hat" (Dutch), and the French, 
and rid their sacred hunting-grounds of the white man's 
moccasin. 




Humphrey Pratt Tavern, 1785, Old Saybrook. 
Washington stopped here. A ball was given to Marquis de Lafayette in the 
ball room, which hangs on chains, 



LYME (EAST SAYBROOK), 1645 

"I and my forbears here did haunt 
Three hundred years and more." 

King Malcolm and Sir Colvin. 

"Each mans chimney is his Goldoi Milestone." 

Longfellow. 

In Lyme on the Great River you will find the quality of 
the picturesque from Whippoorwill to Blackhall, from 
Ferry Road to the Neck and the old " North Quarter;" see 
first of all that primitive feudal grant, extending wide 
and long around her fascinating southeast corner, first 
possessed by Matthew Griswold, Esquire, sometime Justice 
of the Peace and Commissioner of Saybrook Plantation. 
About the time of the sailing of his friend Governor Fen wick, 
nigh three hundred years ago, he established on the east 
side of the Connecticut, Blackhall, the earliest of Lyme's 
family seats. Sons of Griswold "dwelt here permanently" 
on Lyme shore, their manes held sacred, undisturbed like 
Latins of old. As we have left behind us the custom of 
entail, the long record of Blackhall as a family estate is 
extraordinary and doubly precious. 

" Happy he ivhom neither wealth or fashion 

Nor the march of the eueroaeliiug city drives an exile 
From the hearth of his ancestral homestead. " 

From the smooth beach of Blackhall, you look inland 
into the southern face of a placid homestead of little 
old-fashioned panes, built by Governor Roger Griswold. 
"Young Roger" is swinging happily on the odd Dutch 
half-door watching a cluster of butterfly sails on the far-off 
horizon, and dreaming with the determination that when 

42 




The Elm Arch of Blackhall, planted by Charles Chandler Grisivold. The 

House of Mrs. Elizabeth Diodati Grisivold Lane near Matthew 

Griswold's Moss-lined Well. 



43 



44 Old Paths of the New England Border 



& j 



he grows up he will be master of a ship and sail in search 
of Captain Kidd's treasure buried on Gardiner's Isle lving 
just over there between the prongs of Long Island, or fly 
over the sea and far away to visit the old wonders of the 
other Lyme on the English Channel (Lyme Regis of Dorset) 
which Aunt has read about in Persuasion. 1 It is, however, 
far more probable that little Roger Griswold's cabin in life 
will be stacked with volumes in musty calf, and that he will 
guide some Ship of State as did his distinguished " forbears." 
Roger, enchained, listens to the true stories of the Manor 
of Gardiner's Island. How splendid was the diamond 
dropped by Captain Kidd in the well-bucket at the Gardiner 
Manor-house, and the cloth of gold this roving buccaneer 
presented to Lady Gardiner in return for her unwilling 
mutton. A scion of Gardiner Manor came courting at 
Blackball in a splendid barge well-manned, and doubtless 
leaped out on the beach so impatiently to salute his lady- 



1 Lyme is said to have been named for Lyme Regis, the port from which 
the brothers Matthew and Edward Griswold probably sailed for the new 
World on leaving their native Kenilworth. It is an interesting coinci- 
dence that Lord Lion Gardiner named his island in the Sound for the 
Isle of Wight, a neighbor of Lyme Regis on England's south coast. In 
Jane Austen's description of the English town, one cannot but discover 
a flavor of the gentle and varied charms of seashore rocks and upland 
of our Lyme on the south coast of New England; evidently the colonists- 
held in vivid remembrance the contour of the beautiful land of their old 
love. Of Lyme Regis, Jane Austen says: 

"The remarkable situation of the town, the principal street hurrying 
into the water, its walks to the Cobb, skirting round the pleasant little 
bay, which in the season is animated with bathing machines and company; 
. the woodv varieties of the cheerful village of Up Lyme, and above 
all Pinny, with its green charms between romantic rocks . . . more 
than equal to the resembling scenes of the far-famed Isle of Wight. " 

Other authorities believe it probable that Lyme, Conn, was named in 
honor of Lyme in Cheshire, England, the ancestral home of the Leigh 
family; one Thomas Lee being among the most influential of the settlers 
at " East Saybrook. " 



The Griswolds of Blackhall 



45 



love, Mistress Sarah Griswold, that he stained his fine 
top-boots in a salt ripple. 

Roger points out to you the fern-lined ghostly well of 
Matthew Griswold close to the present spacious homestead 
on the old site of Matthew Griswold 's home to which the 
Elm Lane leads. 

On Sabbath mornings it must have been a charming sight 




The Governor Roger Griswold Homestead, Blackhall, Lyme. 

to see the many sons and daughters from the Griswold 
homesteads and escorts with loaded muskets, standing on 
the steps ready to mount pillion and saddle and follow 
Indian file with due caution the Nehantic trail up to the 
log meeting-house, to sit under the Rev. Moses Noyes 1 
who had led his little flock over from Saybrook 2 about 1666. 

'The Rev. Moses Noyes was of a family of divines, "to all the 
country dear. " His father was the pioneer, Rev. James Noyes of New- 
buryport. His grandson, Judge William Noyes, was a Puritan auto- 
crat. His four sons never presumed to ride by his side, but at a respectful 
distance. He would allow no traveller to pass through Lyme on the 
■Sabbath. 

2 Saybrook and East Saybrook agreed on "a loving parting." The 



46 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Would that Hawthorne in his wonderful way had made 
us reverent guests in the Old Manse of ye venerable pastor 
of "Ye Prime Society of Lyme" as in that of Concord! 
and would that he might thus here immortalize the pure 
and rigorous atmosphere of The Street with its early homes 
of jurists and lawmakers, moulders of the Nation! There is 
no doubt that the outer shell of Lyme influenced the destiny 
of the pioneer, speaking to him everywhere of the Infinite 
and of good things provided for him who will but toil. 

Standing on the sunny shore of the Connecticut's 
mouth looking east, the ancient Griswold domain spreads 




' 



Memorial Bridge across Black Hall River, erected by Mrs. William Lane 
to Charles Griswold Lane. 

Soundward in sweet, shelving beaches cut by jagged rocks; 
green, tillable land runs down into the very sands, and 
Sowanshine, the South Wind, laughs long, because her 

Lyme committee who signed the parting covenant were Matthew Gris- 
wold, Reinold Marvin, Richard Smith, William Waller, John Lay, Sen'r. 
The tov/nship patent was ratified unto Griswold, Mr. Wm. Ely and others. 




On the Banks of Lieutenant River 

'Oh, father 's gone to market-town, he was up before the day, 
And Jamie 's after robins and the man is making hay, 
And whistling down the hollow goes the boy that minds the mill,. 
While mother from the kitchen-door is calling with a will : 
' Polly ! — Polly .' — the cows are in the corn ! 

Oh ! where 's Polly f " — Gilder. 47' 



4$ Old Paths of the New England Border 

blustering rival Chekesu is barricaded on the northwest 
by the triangle of the River Range and of Meeting-House 
Hills which stretch away from the mouth of Duck River, 
one of Lyme's small tidal bayous, as the Southerner would 
call her little rivers; under Sowasayeu's soft breath frosts 
melt rapidly in the Moon of Bright Nights and return tardily. 
Half-way to New London Light, the Giant's Neck, like 
that of Alice in Wonderland, lengthens out remarkably and 
terminates in a natural flat rock wharf on three sides of 
which vessels of fair tonnage may ride. Giant's Neck is 
The Golden Milestone, so to speak, of the family of the 
"New York Griswolds," founded by the Rev. George Gris- 
wold. His grandsons, Nathaniel and George Griswold of 
New York, were distinguished merchants in the China trade. 

Bride Brook or Sunkipaug, the original west bound of 
New London, was the scene of a pretty colonial wedding. 
In 1646 a young couple of Saybrook were to be married. 
The magistrate being absent, word was sent to Governor 
John Winthrop at New London who met the wedding party 
at Bride Brook on the boundary, dismayed at the breaking 
ice in the impassable stream. Winthrop pronounced them 
man and wife on his side, the twain promised to love, honor, 
and obey on the other, and sledded back to Saybrook 
rejoicing. 

All the land between Bride Brook and Niantic Bay was in 
dispute for years: in 167 1 Lyme and New London deter- 
mined each to mow the grass on the debatable meadows: 
the swinging of scythes and sickles ended in blows and a 
warrant for Matthew Griswold. Tradition says that cham- 
pions were selected and the stalwart son of Matthew Griswold 
won for Lyme. This was Matthew Griswold the second. 
The Griswolds were very tall, powerful men. The present 
Matthew Griswold, of the 7th generation, late member of 
Congress from Erie, Pennsylvania, and six of his sons are 
all some inches over six feet tall. 



The Lords of Old Lyme 49 

Along the Connecticut in upper Lyme, Richard and 
Thomas Lord, sons of the pioneer, reaped crop after crop 
and acquired wealth, exhausting the soil. (Now these 
charming fields are more picturesque than ever, if less 
edible, with their billowy crop of Indian posy so soothing 
in pillows.) 

The family of Lord arrived in the Elizabeth and Ann, and 
being courageous, root and branch, journeyed with Thomas 
Hooker J to Hartford in the Connecticut Valley, compelling 
the wilderness to blossom like a rose on Lord's Hill, and 
from that day when the Lords and their neighbors, Governor 
Wyllys, Mr. Goodwin, and Mr. Matthew Allyn, planted the 
manorial farms of Hartford, the town has been noted for 
its glorious gardens. 

William Lord was of the fibre of such pioneers as Win- 
throp, Higginson, Whittlesey, Griswold, and Kirtland and 
was loved by the aborigines as was Lion Gardiner: he 
oecame a large landholder in Saybrook and Lyme, the 
Chief Chapeto having consented to sell him large holdings 
because of his friendship for him. He also purchased the 
Indian's Pangwonk, the present town of Salem, for the 

1 This adventure was more remarkable, as many were persons of figure 
who in England had lived in affluence and delicacy, strangers to fatigue 
and danger. 

Captain Richard Lord of Newtown (Cambridge), 1632, an original 
proprietor of Hartford, commanded the first Connecticut troop of horse 
and distinguished himself in Indian wars. Captain Lord was the richest 
man in the colony and with Captain Pyncheon was relied on to secure 
the regicides Whalley and Goffe for trial in England. 

The heirs of Captain Richard Lord received by his will Holland linen, 
armor, " Salmon-nets, Dear Skins, a new damask Tabble-cloth," and land 
in London. His wife, Mrs. Sarah Lord, left her wearing apparel thus: 

" I give my daughter Haynes my silk gown, my mohair petticoat and 
my red 'parrigon' petticoat. 

" I give to my daughter Lord my best broad cloth gown and my red 
troad cloth petticoat. 

" I do give to Hannah Ingersall (alias Kellsey) my dark cloth gown, my 
hay're coll'rd tammy petticoate and my green apron. " 
4 



50 Old Paths of the New England Border 

government. Chapeto's deed to William Lord is one of 
the vivid documents of colonial history. 1 

Traverse the coast from Saybrook to New London and 
Watch Hill — over all is color, delicate, marvelous color: 
the sunlight has a brilliancy, the air a transparency, and 
at sun-setting, clouds, sea, and sky take on intimate, ex- 
quisite hues. Standing on Old Lyme's Watch Rock of 
the War of 1812 which commands the Connecticut, watch 
the violet and rosy tints make luminous the waters meet- 
ing dark rich foliage on strangely shaped hummocks — 
or "hammocks" as the old sea-dogs call these rounded 
landmarks. 

Everywhere in sequestered nook or on the " King's 
Highway" of the colonial town sprout white umbrellas like 
huge mushrooms. 

Miss Florence Griswold's house 2 on "The Street" pos- 
sesses the rarest of door panels called into life by the brushes 
of those artists who have dwelt herein many a long, sweet 
summer. How curious to recall by contrast the "good old 
times" of the first century of our Republic when, if the grim 
Puritan thought of Art at all, it was as a vanity of a luxurious 
life: he believed the imaginative quality to be a wile of 
the devil, even to adorn the person was unpardonable, a 
waste of time which could much better be employed at 

1 A very old copy of Chapeto's deed is possessed by Mrs. Salisbury and 
included in the Family Histories and Genealogies of Lyme by Edward 
Ell >ridge Salisbury and Evelyn McCurdy Salisbury. 

2 This house in which Lyme's artist colony congregates has been ren- 
dered even more celebrated in 1907 in the painting by Metcalf, May 
Night, which received the first prize at the Corcoran Gallery exhibition. 
It hangs in the Pittsburg Art Gallery. Recent artists associated with 
the house include, Childe Hassam, William Howe, Gifford Beale, Henry 
R. Poore, Edward Rook, Alphonse Jongers. The discoverer of Lyme's 
possibilities for art was Henry W. Ranger and later Frank Vincent Du 
Mond brought his school here. Many others have established studios 
with homes, Louis Paul Dessar, Jules Turcas, Miss Saunders, Arthur 
Dawson, and the September exhibition is an event. 



The Artist Colony, Lyme 



5i 



foddering the cows or building schoolhouses. Of some of 
Lyme's rocky uplands, — adorable material for the artist — ■ 
the practical old-timer would remark: "Stone's got a pretty 
heavy mortgage on thet ther land." 




ie William Noyes House, built in 1818, Residence of Miss Florence Griswold. 
e of "Tlie Artists." Rendered even more celebrated in igoy in the painting of 

Metcalf—May Night. 



Connecticut's Colonel John Trumbull, artist particular 
of the American Revolution, who has left to us in the famous 
gallery of Yale the greatest military portrait of Washington, 
whose aid-de-camp he was, bluntly said to an aspirant to 
fame, "You had better learn to make shoes or dig potatoes 



52 Old Paths of the New England Border 

than become a painter in this country." On this question 
also Benjamin Franklin penetrated the future; he writes 
from London in 1 7 7 1 to Peale; "The arts have always 




Whitefield Rock, in the Garden of Charles H. Ludington, Esq.; earlier the 
Lot of the Rev. Jonathan Parsons. The preaching of his friend II hite- 
peld caused dissension in the Lyme Church, and Dr. Parsons departed 
to Newburyport. 

travelled westward: and there is no doubt of their flourishing 
hereafter on our side of the Atlantic, as the number of wealthy 
inhabitants shall increase who shall be able and willing suitably 



The Arts in America 



DO 



to reward them, since, from several instances, it appears that 
our people are not deficient in genius. " 

In one of the fascinating Art scrap-books, bequeathed 
by W. H. Huntington to the Metropolitan Museum are 
these lines under a Medallion of Franklin: 
"II a ravi le feu des Cieux 
11 fait fieuri les Arts en des climats sauvages 

L'Amerique le place a la tcte des sages." 







Studio and House of Allen B. Taleott, Neck Road, overlooking the Connecticut River. 

Franklin's prophecy is fulfilled throughout America; in 
his beloved city stands the Philadelphia Academy; here in 
Connecticut the Yale Gallery and the future Museum of Fine 
Arts at Hartford, the gift to his native town of J. Pierpont 
Morgan, Esq., are both established on Puritanical soil. 



54 Old Paths of the New England Border 

What an indisputable voucher for the fetching loveliness 
of Lyme is its ever-increasing colony of painters. In the 
lower Connecticut Valley the uplands are full of surprises 
and everywhere you may go, you will see about you pictures 
which would drive most artists wild with joy. Follow up 
the old "Street" from the church and McCurdy house, 
passing the Mather homestead, the old home of Chief 
Justice Henry M. Waite of Connecticut and his son, Chief 
Justice Morrison R. Waite, the Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library; 
turn to the left and cross the sapphire Lieutenant River (one 
of Lyme's five little rivers rippling deep or shallow as the 
tide flows and ebbs) and cross the low causeway dividing the 
lush meadow through which the stream plays hide-and-seek 
beneath the ripe smothering emerald grasses. Suddenly 
you come upon the broad Connecticut: north, bending 
lovingly close to the " Great River, " are the homes and 
studios of Carleton Wiggins, Allen B. Talcott, and Clark 
G. Voorhees, within view of the pleasant white village of 
Essex on the opposite shore. 

"Up river" is the wild, ancient tract of Tantummaheag 
bequeathed to Lieutenant Richard Lord, son of W T illiam 
Lord, " bounded west by the Cove, East by my brother 
Thomas Lord's land, South by Tantomehege brook." 
At the Neck the hay-fields are edged by rugged rocks, 
formerly the quarries of the Lords and of "John Coult, 1 
Gentleman," who built homesteads hereabouts. 

In the homestead of Lieutenant Richard Lord on the 
Neck was born the high-spirited and beautiful Ann Lord 2 
who vowed to "jump out of the window" if not allowed 

1 Ancestor of the Colts of Hartford. Mrs. Samuel Colt the philanthro- 
pist, Mrs. Evelyn MacCurdy Salisbury of New Haven and Lyme, were 
among the founders of the Society of The Colonial Dames of Connecticut. 

2 Ann Lord's sister Elizabeth married Jared Eliot, Jr., son of the Rev. 
Jared Eliot of Killingworth, now Clinton, Conn., a great-grandson of 
the apostle Eliot. 



The McCurdys of Lyme 55 

to marry the man of her choice, the young Scotch-Irish 
ship merchant, John McCurdy. Her handsome "setting 
out" of mahogany and china remains in their homestead to 
this day. In recompense for stores lost in the burning of 
New London, John McCurdy — one of the governing com- 
mittee in charge of the Revolutionary coastguard — received 
a grant in Ohio — Lyme of the Western Reserve. 

A daughter of John McCurdy married the Rev. Henry 
Charming of New London in whose family were spent the 
early days of William Ellery Channing; he probably often 
wandered over the picturesque rocks at the Neck, the 
home of her grandfather. Most appropriately the Channing 
Memorial Church was quarried out of these rocks of por- 
phyritic granite, the gift of a nephew of Mrs. Channing, 
Judge Charles Johnson McCurdy, Charge d'Affaires at 
Vienna, 185 1-2. 

It was midsummer, 1778; the American Revolution was 
almost at boiling point. Above stacked arms, under shad- 
owy elms on the Green of Old Lyme, waved the white fieur- 
de-lys, and our shining yearling, the Stars and Stripes, first 
flung in united strength and beauty at Brandywine. Min- 
gling with the rugged buff and blue were courtly and brilliant 
uniforms surmounted by the tricorne, the sword suspended 
by a knot of the blue ribbon of Saint Michel, and the 
Marquis de Lafayette in yellow satin waistcoat, the red 
and white trimmings of the blue coat fastened with gold 
buttons. 

Major-General Lafayette had ordered a night's rest in 
Lyme for Varnum's and Glover's brigades on their quick- 
step to join the land forces of General Sullivan and Admiral 
D'Estaing's six frigates and twelve ships of the line in the 
recapture of the island of Rhode Island. 

We have discovered no list of these French officers, yet 
doubtless De Gimat was there, the intimate friend and 



56 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



aid-de-camp of the Marquis, and chivalric Armand de la 
Rouerie, familiarly "Colonel Armand"; also De Pont- 
gibaud, for he had succeeded in escaping from Chateau de 
Pierre-en-Cise, in order to fly to the United States, after 
having been deprived of his liberty like others of the young 
nobilitv bv a Icttre-dc-cacJiet. 




The McCurdy House, built about 1730, Property of Mrs. Evelyn McCurdy Salisbur 
Here Washington was entertained April 9, 1776, and Lafayette, July 27, 1778. 
The north chamber is preserved as of yore. 

In the north chamber of yonder colonial house, Lafayette 
slept, accepting the hospitality of Lyme's Scotch-Irish 



Lafayette in Old Lyme 57 

patriot John McCurdy, he who had so vigorously circulated 
revolutionary broadsides written by Sons of Liberty, and 
moreover had dared to publish in the Connecticut Gazette 
the rebellious document against the Stamp Act written by 
Lyme's "incomparable Stephen Johnson," thus, as Mrs. 
Lamb says, "fanning the flame of Liberty with his broad 
purse. M1 

Lafayette much appreciated his reception in the country 
towns, and enthusiastically expressed his pleasure in the 
following letter to his valorous comrade of noble lineage, his 
beautiful young wife, the unselfish Adrienne de Noailles. 
She was first in applauding his course, his relatives being 
furious at his crossing the Atlantic to aid America. The 
devoted and anxious husband sent off this letter to Madame 
Lafavette in three parts, in three separate vessels, chal- 
lenging every vicissitude — pirates, gales, English frigates: 

11 Everything is very like England excepting there u more 
simplicity here. . . . The America)! ladies ore very 
pretty, very simple, and delightfully clean. Cleanliness pre- 
vails universally with the greatest fastidiousness, 
The inns arc very different from those in Europe; the inn- 
keeper and his wife sit down at table with you, do all the honors 
of a good meal, and when yon go yon pay without any bar- 
gaining. If you don't want to go to an inn, you find country 
houses, where it is enough to be a good American to find a 
reception such as Europe only gives to a friend. I 

hope that for my sake you will become a good American. It 
is a sentiment fit for noble hearts; for the happiness of America 
is liidzcd to the happiness of mankind. . . . People must 
think I am very happy, but you are not here, dear heart." 2 



1 Martha J. Lamb on the Historic Home of Judge Charles Johnson 
McCurdy, Magazine of American History, vol. 26. 

2 Household of the Lajaycttes, by Edith Sichel: Archibald, Constable,. 
& Co. and The MacMillan Company. 



5^ Old Paths of the New England Border 

The ardent young Marquis, now making his first en- 
trance into New England, was the cynosure of all eyes, just 




The First Congregational Church of Lyme, at the comer of The Street and Ferry 
Lane. Erected, 1807. Organized, 1666. Burned, July 3, 1907. 

as on his second visit to Lyme after the vicissitudes of his 
beloved France had pencilled lines in the face without 
shrivelling the heart. 

Enlisted as a volunteer at his own expense 1 and wounded 

'After some years Washington encountered his opportunity to return 



Lafayette and Franklin 59 

at Brandywine, 1 Washington and Lafayette had just 
wintered together at Valley Forge, training uncouth volun- 
teers and sympathizing with shoeless troops, and the man 
of forty- five came to love as his own child this generous 
boy so royally impulsive yet discreet. Rumors of the 
romantic star that ruled his career, now luminous, preceded 
him. 

All in one moment Lafayette had decided to flv to aid 
America. He first heard of the declaration of American 
independence at a dinner given by his commander, the old 
Marshal de Broglie. The guest of honor, the Duke of 
Gloucester — then in disgrace with his brother, George III., 



in part our debt to Lafayette. On the tidings of his imprisonment at 
Rochefort in 1792, Washington's first thought was the consolation of 
the Marchioness and he wrote : 

"If I liad words that could convey to you an adequate idea of my feelings 
on the present situation of the Marquis Lafayette, this letter would appear 
to you in a different garb. The sole object in writing to you now, is to inform 
you that I have deposited in the hands of Mr. Nicholas Van Staphorst of 
Amsterdam, two thousand three hundred and ten guilders . . . subject 
to your orders. 

". . . This sum is. I am certain, the least I am indebted for services 
rendered me by the Marquis de Lafayette, of which I have never yet received 
the account. I could add much, but it is best, perhaps, that I should say 
little on this subject. Your goodness will supply my deficiency. " 

'Fifty years later, when Mrs. Rives, wife of our minister to France, paid 
a visit to Lafayette at Lagrange, she discovered that the flag presented to 
the General by the officers of the Brandywine, formed the tapestry of the prin- 
cipal salo>i, in an appropriate drapery of the picture of Washington. Samuel 
Topliff of Boston, in his pleasant and spicy travels was also impressed with 
General Lafayette's interest in all things American. Every room in the 
chateau "contained some memorial of America." On a fine green spot 
was the beautiful race boat presented by the Whitehall boatmen of New 
York. On displaying his farm, Lafayette related that an English noble- 
man had observed concerned a certain superior pig "that the General 
could boast of having the finest one England could "produce. 'Excuse 
me,' said the General . . . . ' I must inform you it came from Baltimore.' " 
To pliff's Travels. Edited by his granddaughter, Ethel Stanwood Bolton. 
— The Boston Athenaeum. 



60 Old Paths of the New England Border 

on account of his marriage, — regaled the party with the 
story of the Boston Tea Party and the denoument: La- 
fayette was afire for Freedom, and opposition from his 
king only incited him to ask aid from Franklin, who put 
him in the way of fitting out a ship; the Marquis escaped 
in the disguise of a postilion, and it is said he was recog- 
nized by the pretty maid of an inn, who nevertheless told 
the officers pursuing that Lafayette had gone by in a 
carriage. 

Sailing from Bordeaux the youth landed at Charleston, 
S. C, where Von Huger welcomed him. Lafayette's de- 
voted comrades, the Comte de Segur and Vicomte de 
Noailles, postponed accompanying him only because they 
had no money. It is said that Lafayette arrived one 
morning at seven while the Count was still in bed. "Wake 
up," he cried. "I am going to America to fight for Free- 
dom. Nobody knows it as yet, but I love you too much 
not to tell you"; De Segur lost not a minute in leaping out 
of bed and saying he would go too. 1 

Lafayette encountered reminders of the practical Franklin 
continually in New England ; he had first seen the philosopher 
when page to the Queen at the scintillating French Court 
where this youth stood a little aside and pondered, whilst 
his friends of Young Paris danced the minuet and picked 
up the coquettish fan. Marie Antoinette encouraged his 
originality. In the midst of the Ancien Regime enters the 
Envoy with black coat and unpowdered hair and the 
novel idea of freedom. The young Societe d' Epee aux 
Bois, to the disgust of the old courtiers, embraced with 
fervor the plain manners of Benjamin Franklin in high 
marten cap, declaring they would discard toupees and adopt 
fustian. Every man of quality possessed a medallion of 
Franklin on a snuff-box or rapier. 

1 The Household of the Lafayettes, by Edith Sichel. 



62 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



LANDMARKS: Rivers— Lieutenant, 
Duck, Black Hall, Mile Creek, Four 
Mile. Lyme once included Old Lyme, 
Lyme, East Lyme, part of Had- 
lyme. First settlers: Griswolds, Mar- 
vins, Elys, Lords, Lays, Noyes, 
Lees, De Wolfs, Champions, and 
others. The Street t I 1-2 miles long, 
beginning at south end : Rev. Jona- 
than Parsons house and Parsons 
Tavern stood on site Charles Henry 
Ludington residence. First Con- 
gregational Church. McCurdy home- 
stead, built not later than 1730. 
Purchased by John McCurdy, 1753. 
Black walnut trees planted before 
the Revolution. Mather homestead, 
(1790), now Parsonage of Congrega- 
tional Church. The ancient and 
learned family to which Increase 
and Cotton Mather belonged. Box- 
wood School. Chief Justice Henry 
M Waite house, residence Mrs. 
Joseph Perkins. The Noyes Library, 
on site of Noyes homestead, erected 
by Charles H. Ludington and Joseph 
Noyes Ludington in memory of 
Phoebe Griffin Noyes, the educator, 
daughter of Joseph Lord; address on 
Presentation Day made by Daniel 
Coit Gilman. Mrs. Noyes had one 
of the first art schools in the country. 
Gen. Sheldon- Joseph Lord house, 
Deming house (1729) — ancestors of 
the Demings and Champions of Con- 
necticut. Reuben Champion built 
large vessels on the Connecticut. 
Judge Charles Johnson McCurdy 
house (1817). Noyes house (1790), 
summer residence of the Rev. Dr. 
Wiliiam T. Sabine of New York. 
House of Judge Walter Chadwick 
Noyes (author on Trusts) on site 
Manse of Rev. Moses Noyes. On 
L'eutenant River, vessels built and 
West India trade carried on by 



On Meeting-House Hill is one 
of the celebrated Franklin mile- 
stones 1 which in 1 7 7 6 saw Wash- 
ington pass into Lyme (where 
he spent the night of April 10th) 
on his way from Cambridge after 
the British had evacuated Boston; 
and also saw these French allies 
march on to Rhode Island. Per- 
haps General Lafayette saluted 
this little wayside post planted 
here by his philosopher friend, 
Franklin, when Postmaster-Gen- 
eral of the Colonies; Franklin 
measured the miles by a machine 
of his own invention attached 
to his chaise, the ancestor of our 
cyclometer. 

A story of Franklin when on 
one of his frequent journeys 
over the post-road from Phila- 
delphia to Boston is told by 
Shepherd Tom Hazard. Ar- 
rived at an inn not far from 
Lyme one frosty night, Frank- 
lin found every inch of the 
blazing log pre-empted by vil- 
lage politicians swapping news, 
and thereupon ordered a peek 



1 On the old Bowery is a Franklin stone which reads, " i\ miles to Xew 
York." It would seem when one reviews the mechanical and intellectual 
devices turning our wheels faster and faster that the earliest suggestions, 
on all things which add to comfort were offered by Washington and 
Franklin. Franklin founded the first circulating library and the first 
fire insurance company in America. 



Old Lyme Church 



63 



of oysters for his horse: the 
entire company followed the 
landlord to see the miracle. 
When mine host returned to 
say that the horse refused to 
feed on oysters, Franklin was 
discovered ensconced in the 
warmest corner, quite recon- 
ciled to a meal off the oysters 
himself. 

The third house of worship 
on Meeting-House Hill came near 
destruction in 1780, because of 
woodpeckers boring holes in the 
roof; when the "watch" shot at 
them with his flint-lock musket 
the tow-wad set fire to the dry 
timbers. Tradition says that 
Hessians or light horsemen stationed in the town jumped 
on the roof like squirrels and saved the meeting-house, 
finally destroyed by lightning in 181 5. In 181 7 this church 
was succeeded by the present model of architectural beauty 
on the plain below. The painting of Old Lyme Church by 
Childe Hassam exhibited at the St. Louis Fair hangs in the 
Gallery of American Artists at Smith College. 



John McCurdy and William Neilson 
of New York followed by Samuel 
and James Mather. " The Neck"; 
Lord house, summer residence of 
Robert C Hall, Esq., of Pittsburg. 
Dr. William Lord house, property 
of James N. Brown, Esq., of Brook- 
lyn. The Coult homesteads. Jump- 
ing Rocks, 80 ft. above valley. 
The " Stone house," chaotic mass 
of caverns, quarries of red por- 
phyritic granite. McCurdy Avenue 
leads to Black Hall by way of 
Memorial Bridge across Black Hall 
River. Lay's Hill between Black Hall 
Creek and Duck Creek. Here John 
Lay and Isaac Waterhouse first 
settlers. Point beyond Black Hall 
owned by Prof. Daniel C Eaton of 
N. H. Hamburg or "North Quarter" 
of Lyme: Home of Rev. Dr. E. F. 
Burr, author of "Ecce Ccelum." 
Here lived Dr. Samuel Mather, and 
Miss Caroline Ely founded a school. 
East Lyme: Widow Caulkins Inn. 
Lafayette dined here. 



NEW LONDON (PEQUOT), 1645 

" New London, New London, New London, ahoy ! " H. C. Bunner. 

LION GARDINER TO JOHN WINTHROP, JR., FROM THE ISLE OF 

WIGHT 

" Feb. 16 j2. 

"Honored Sir: — 

" My love and service being remembered, are these 
to thank you for the hay seeds you sent me, I sowed them and 
sum came up I have sent you a rarity of seeds which came, 
from the Mohawks, which is a kindc of mi I ions [melons, 
probably the summer squash] but far excelleth all other. They 
are as good as wheat for to thicken milk, and sweet as sugar, 
and baked they are most excellent, having no shell. You may 
keep them as long as anic pumpkins.'" 

Thus did the Lord of Gardiner's Isle exchange garden 
civilities with the founder of New London and future 
Governor of Connecticut, the Younger Winthrop, prcux 
chevalier and one of the great men of our Colonial age. 
He had chosen for his grant — baronial in extent — Fisher's 
Island and Pequot, rich in woodlands, a broad river, and 
the finest harbor between New Amsterdam and Newport. 
The worshipful John Pyncheon perceived the excellencies 
of Pequot Harbor, and very early entered into correspon- 
dence with Winthrop, sending cattle in droves from Spring- 
field "over the path to Pequot" 1 to be shipped. 

Winthrop held exclusive privilege of grinding corn for 

1 On this wilderness path, which also branched to Wethersfield, stood 
the Uncas fort, on the Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall grant of 1609. After the 
Charter, was built the first English house on this Pequot path. Barber 
says "the old well and crooked pear trees fix the site, and many won- 
derful stories are related about what happened to this house in days 
of old." 

64 



Governor Winthrop's Grist Mill 



65 



the Colony, and strange to say his mill is still in possession 
of the rock glen in the heart of New London, having sur- 
vived the town's disasters from war and fire, the malice of 
Arnold, yellow fever and the decline of a fine West India trade. 





The Salt Meadows. 

To the Winthrop grant soon came from Gloucester on 
the Cape a "Welsh party" of Monmouthshire, led by the 
Rev. Mr. Blynman; these families, called to meeting by 
the beat of Peter Blatchford's drum from Cape Ann Lane, 
were Hugh Calkins, the Lesters, Allyns, Averys, and 
Coites, 1 who founded a shipbuilding industry, also the 

'Joseph Coit, who became the first minister at Plainfield (the son of 



66 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Meades, Beebes, and Marshalls. Hugh Calkins's grant on 
the bay adjoined Winthrop's Ferry Farm, which carried 
the Rope Ferry privilege at Nahantick bar. 

" Ye ferry over Great River," Groton ferry, " being a scow 
with both sails and oars," was leased to Gary Latham, 1 
first at Groton Bank, and first to mow the meadows at 
Fog-Plain. In 1705, the rents of the ferry were assigned 
the grammar school, in part of the master's " yearly sallery. 
provided nevertheless, that the inhabitants of the town 
on Lords days, thanksgiving days, and days of humiliation, 
shall be ferriage free." 

The settlers like all staunch Puritans were severe on 
themselves. Nathaniel Mather writes: " Of all the manifold 
sins which then I was guilty of, none so sticks upon me as 
that, being very young, I was whittling upon the Sabbath 
Day." Many were summoned to court for offences almost 
as trifling as whittling: "John Lewis and Sarah Chapman 
for sitting together on the Lord's day, under an apple tree 
in Goodman's orchard." 

Hawthorne declared that any one of the black-browed 
Puritans of the Hawthorne tree would have thought the 
landmarks: court House (1784). blossoming of an idler like him- 

Library (Richardson design); bas- , ,- rr • i j •! j • r 1 ■ 

relief of founder, H. P. Haven, by Self Sufficient retributlOll for lllS 

A. St. Gaudens. General Jedediah s j ns _ 'What is he?"' murmured 

Huntington house; Collector of the 

Port and friend of Washington. Olie glTlV shadow Ot HIV fore- 

ffis house fashioned after the style fatherg fa the other _ < A wn ' t f 

of Mount Vernon. Ye Ancientist 

Burying Ground." Oldest stone to of Story books ! ' ' What kind 

James Mudge 1652. Oldest in- . . . . 1 .. . 

scribed tablet to Captain Richard ot a business in lite, what manner 

Lord : "The Bright Starre of our Q f glorifying God, Or being Sd'- 
Cavahne." Memorials to Madame > ° J ° _° 

Elizabeth winthrop, Rev. Simon viceable to mankind in his day 

Joseph and Martha Coit), was the first native of New London to receive 
a collegiate education, being a first graduate of the Collegiate School at 
Saybrook, now Yale College. 

2 Captain William Latham commanded Fort Griswold in 1781 under 
the district commander, Colonel William Ledyard. 



The Gallant Averys of Groton 



67 



Bradstreet, Deacon Clement Miner 
(1700), Deacon Joseph Coit. To 
founders Lester, Harris, Raymond, 
Comstock, Hough, Haynes, Chappell, 
Truman, Fosdick, Darrow, Dart, 
and others. St. James's Church, 
dedicated by Bishop Seabury, the 
first Bishop of Connecticut and 
Rhode Island. Mumford-Wolcott 
house (1702), the Parish House. 
Smith Memorial house U799)' 
The First Church of Christ. Dis- 
tinguished ministers, Rev. Ephraim 
Woodbridge, Rev. Henry Channing, 
Rev. Abel McEwen. Huguenot 
house (,1697). Soldiers and Sailors 
Monument, gift of a son of Joseph 
Lawrence. Major-General Burbeck 
house. Four Sister Elms (,1812). 
Captain Guy Richards house U 739). 
The " Red Lion "; house spared in 
1781 by p.eading of beautiful 
Molly Coit for her sick father. 
Latimer-Dr. Abel McEwen parson- 
age. Arnold Marvin Wait house 
(.1719). Birthplace of Hon. John 
T. Wait, on site of Gov. Saltonstall 
house. Captain Nathaniel Coit- 
Belden house. Denison-Chappeil 
house (,1785). Manwaring home- 
stead stood on site of George Chap- 
pell's lot of 1650. Hallam house. 
Shaw's Neck between Bream and 
Close Coves, home-lots of Thomas 
Miner and William Morton. Foxon's 
hill, named for Foxon, deputy of 
Uncas at court, " the wisest Indian 
in the country." Nathan Hale 
Memorial School, Post Hill. Thames 
River bridge, widest drawbridge 
known. Tongue's Bank, Tongue's 
Cliffs. George Tongue was granted 
four poles of land before his house- 
lot on the bank." Collection of 
antiques at Groton, open to the pub- 
lic, by Anna Warner Bailey Chapter, 
D. A. R., of Groton and Stonington. 
Groton is the birthplace of Daboll's 
Almanac. Bill Memorial Library and 
Starr homestead. Early light-houses, 
New London district : West side har- 
bor entrance Thames, built 1760. 
Lynde Point, west side Connecticut, 



and generation may that be? 
Why, the degenerate fellow might 
as well have been a fiddler!' 
Such are the compliments bandied 
between my great-grandsires and 
myself across the gulf of time!" 1 
"Little Owl Meadow" was 
given to James Avery, who seems 
to have been the Miles Standish 
of New London. Together with 
John Morgan, Avery received 
bounties for w T olves' heads. As 
Lieutenant he commanded the 
Pequot allies when Governor Jo- 
siah Winslow broke the power 
of the Narragansetts at their 
fort at South Kingston, R. I. 
Previously Lieutenant Avery with 
Mr. Brewster, Richard Haughton, 
and Samuel Lothrop had rescued 
Uncas when pursued by the 
Narragansetts to the head of 
Nehantic River. For £6, he pur- 
chased the first barn meeting- 
house (the men then sat on one 
side and the women on the other) , 
become all too small for the 
settlers, who came from up the 
Mohegan or Pequot and across 
Great River (the Thames) "with 
flint-lock in one hand and the 
Bible in the other." Lieutenant 
Avery built at Poquonnock (South 



1 Introduction to The Scarlet Letter. 



68 Old Paths of the New England Border 

lighted 1803. stonington Point, Groton) that quaint and famous 

1823. Morgan's Point near Mystic, 

1831. Fisher's island Hummock farmhouse known as "The Hive 

1849. Floating Lights, Bartlett's f ^ A g » , E l even of 
Reef, 1835. Eel Grass Light on 

Fisher's Island Sound, total number the gallant AverVS fell at Fort 

of vessels passed in 1850, 17,697. ~ , . , .. 111 

Gnswold and are enrolled on 
the Groton monument. Christopher Avery came with 
Governor Winthrop to Salem. Groton was named for the 
home seat of Adam Winthrop, leader of the second Puritan 
emigration. 

On September 6, 1781, sounded the boom of Fort Gris- 
wold's two regular guns of alarm and New London met her 
Waterloo. The British were doubly exasperated by the 
capture in Long Island Sound of the rich merchant ship 
Hannah; Shaw's warehouse at New London was packed with 
her cargo, the most valuable brought in during the war, and 
other rich merchandise. The scarlet coats, vowing ven- 
geance, landed on both sides of the river, capturing Fort 
Trumbull, and spared but few houses. In New London 
the very gutters ran rivers of fire, and Arnold, from " Ye 
Ancient Burying Ground," watched with bitter joy the 
destruction of the houses of "auld acquaintance" of his 



2 It is an interesting fact that kin of the New England Averys have 
established a homestead far south in Louisiana on one of the old Spanish 
grants, the island of Petit Anse ("Little Goose"), now Avery's Island, 
assigned originally to settlers from the Iberian peninsula (New Iberia is 
just north). The island is famous for its salt mine, the peppery Tobasco 
sauce, and for its prehistoric relics and fossils imbedded between the 
overflows of salt. Situated in the vicinity of that region pictured by 
Lafcadio Hearn in Chita, the island is of unusual charm, even in winter, 
rising above a wide sea of purple marshes, stretching to the Gulf and 
threaded by silver bayous; Acadian huts scattered here and there, in 
January, the green and the scarlet of the yupon berries in high contrast 
to the sere, flat rice-fields along the Teche. The salt mine itself is a 
superb crystal cave, under artifical light flashing like diamonds. General 
B. sent a brigade to destroy the mine; "we have razed the works, Sir, 
but we cannot blow up the earth, " was the day's report. 



Ledyard Defends Fort Griswold 69 

boyhood and the attack of Fort Griswold on Groton Heights 
opposite: there 







77?c summer home of Dr. Samuel R. Elliott, New London, built on the rock 
where the British landed. Dr. Elliott's home has lone, been a rendezvous 
for men of letters. Here (Miss) Edith M. Thomas spends her summers. 

"Ledyard, the hero, held his men 
Up to their work with a grip of steel, 



Honor or life then honor first." 1 



1 Rose Terry Cooke. 



jo Old Paths of the New England Border 

A letter dated "N. London, ph Sep. iy8i" is eloquent: 

Dr. Sr. 

I have the Unhappiness to acquaint you, Genl. Arnold 
with about 1500 or 2000 Men Landed Here Yesterday 
Morning & have Burnt this Town from the Court House 
to Nathl. Shaw; House which was Sav'd & from Giles 
Mumfords House to Capt. Richards Store. . . . They 
Have Burnt your House & All Your Stores at Groton & 
Most of the Houses on the Bank. Thev Attack'd the fort 
at Groton with Great Spirit but were Repuls'd with Loss 
several times by Col. Ledyard who Commanded, who was 
Oblig'd to Surrender to Superior Force, after the Fort Had 
Surrendered they inhumanely Put him to Death as Also 
Capt. Peter Richards and a Number of Others. 
The Enemy are Now Under Sail Going Away — Shou'd 
think it Best for you to Come Down — 

I am With Great Affection Your friend 

Zab: Rogers. 
[Addressed :] 

Thos. I. Mumford Esq. 1 Now at Hartford. 

Arnold's birthplace being only fourteen miles distant, 
he had retained secret allies in the town, and gave orders 
that a certain house in Gingerbread Lane should be spared ; 
it was accordingly chalked; the owner, like .4// Baba and the 
Forty Thieves, secretly chalked his neighbors' houses, and 
these all survived as "Widow's Row," in Gingerbread 
Lane. On the Parade all was destroyed. 

By curious fortune the combustibles lighted by the British 
in the Manwaring house were extinguished with a barrel 
of soap, and at Shaw Manor by tapping a pipe of vinegar 
in the garret. 

Nathaniel Shaw, Jr., the merchant prince of New London, 
acquired a fortune by shipping mules to the West Indies 

1 Thomas Mumford was one of eleven men of Connecticut who formed 
the project of taking Ticonderoga. 



The Shaw Mansion, New London 



7i 



and importing molasses, brown sugar, and coffee. In 1774 
trade was ruined, for " mules would not sell for cash in the 
West Indies or molasses in Nevv England." 

During the Revolution he advised in all naval affairs in 
Connecticut, and forwarded opportune supplies of powder 
to General Washington, who visited New London to counsel 
with Admiral Hopkins, commander of the first naval expe- 
dition under authority of Congress. 




The Hempstead Homestead built before 1678 by Robert or his son Joshua. 
Residence of John L. Branch, Esq. 

The mahogany four-poster in which Washington slept 
is in the "White Room" of the Shaw mansion. In the 
stress of war-times, Mistress Lucretia Shaw filled her home 
with cots for our soldiers. In 1898, in the same hospitable 
hall, a descendant, with the Lucretia Shaw Chapter, D. A. R., 
packed hampers for the war sufferers. 



72 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Nathan Hale "taught school" in New London and here 
enlisted under the inspiration of his renowned epigram. 
Other prominent patriots were Major-General Burbeck, 
later president of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati, 
Richard Law, and Major William Hillhouse, members of 
the Governor's council, and Captain John Deshon 
(Deschamps) . 

The oldest house in New London is the Hempstead home- 
stead, 1 in which was held the first assembly of the Society 
of Mayflower Descendants of Connecticut. In "The An- 
tientist Book" of 1647 is written: "John Steubens and 
Robert Hempstead are chosen to view the fences for this 
year." Also Robert Hempstead mowed the meadows at 
Lower Mamacock. 

Mrs. Branch has given us a series of pretty pictures in 
this quaint Hempstead home of eight generations, flanked 
by sweet-flag and violets, the "posy-beds" of great-aunt 
Patty, and the flowering quince hedge along The Lane, up 
which the ducks used to wander. In The Manner of Life 
of Nancy Hempstead, the inexperienced young wife of 
Joshua Hempstead appears disconsolate, not because her 
jelly "won't jell," but because in trying this first time to 
make bayberry tallow for candles, she skimmed the top off, 
and got nothing! Bayberry, unlike other fat settles to 
the bottom. 

Aunt Patty Hempstead remembered the burning of New 
London, and how when they fled into the country, she led 
her little brother Joshua up the long hills of the Colchester 
Road, and lifted him to his feet when he stumbled; they 
slept that night in a barn on piles of sheep's fleeces. Great 
was the children's excitement when they returned, to find 

'Names connected with this house are: Sheriff Hempstead and the 
Joshua who was a New England Pepys ; also Mary Bolles Branch and 
Anna Hempstead Branch, to whom we are deeply indebted for certain 
delicate and sympathetic latter-day poems. 



Old Whaling-Days 73 

houses in ashes and their own home flooded with rum and 
molasses and strewn with broken cheeses. 

After the war, prosperity sailed once again into New 
London in barrels of whale oil. There is still a flavor of 
whaling-days among the old "sea-dogs" who "call all 




Ocean Beach, New London, Conn. 
''Still shall a violet evening please the sea, 
And a pale splendor satisfy the air." 

— Anna Hempstead Branch. 

hands" to plum-duff at the Jib-Boom Club, and fall to 
reeling yarns as thrilling as at the Captains' Club of Nan- 
tucket. There is a fascination in sea-adventures after safe 
return, but imagine the horrors of fifty New London sail 
crushed betw r een icebergs, or a crew cast on Desolation 
Island among sea-elephants. 1 When you see tide meeting 

1 A sketch of New London's whaling industry and the Captain is in- 
eluded in Charlotte Molineux Holloway's "The Old Whaling Port," Con- 
necticut Quarterly, May, 1897. 



74 Old Paths of the New England Border 

tide under Race Rock Light, or view on the Shore Road the 
wrecking-apparatus of "Captain Joe," the diver, big-hearted 
and retiring, and hero of Caleb West (like Edmund Hosmer, 
Emerson's philosopher-farmer, "the spicy farming sage" of 
Concord, Captain Joe is of the finest "stock" the States 
produce) , you rest content to be a landlubber, and make the 
most of summer by the sea, upon the sands of Ocean Beach 
lazily watching the passing on the Sound, and, over the 
Sound, summer reigns till gray November. 

" So all day long the vine looks down, 
On the roofs of the quaint, old-fashioned town." 1 

Again, you stand on the ramparts of Fort Trumbull 
looking up the Thames at sunset, a rosy haze melting into 
violet, lights up the rich foliage, tints listless sails and Gro- 
ton's emerald lawns sloping to the harbor's mouth. In 
the afterglow, Groton monument, the Fort Griswold em- 
bankment, and a gray schooner drifting riverward. are etched 
darkly against the sky ; the oars of a dory trail gold at every 
stroke. Dancing attendance on the evening star, light 
after light flashes on the romantic horizon — " the street 
lamps of the ocean." 

From New London's wharves, there is a fine choice of 
historic trips by water; you may steam to Greenport, or, if 
it is not " skittish weather" outside, to Block Island. Again 
to Watch Hill, the fishing grounds of the tribe of Ninigret 
who carried off the daughter of Wyandace of Long Island 
during her wedding festivities. The bride was rescued by 
Lion Gardiner, sealing his life friendship with the Sachem. 

Or visit ancient and aristocratic Stonington, touching 
midway at the quaint hamlet of Noank framed in blue 
water by Palmer's Cove and Mystic Harbor. On a trans- 
parent day of Indian summer, it seems as if you mi. ht 

x Tlic Song of the Van, by Walter Learned, New London. 



Gales Ferry 



75 



reach out and touch Fisher's Island and North Hill where 
the Atlantic went to pieces in '46; Mystic Island is close by 
and the Mason monument on Pequot Hill. You listen to 
the sound of hammers " knocking away the shores and spurs" 
of some noble ship, for on Mystic River is a large wooden 
ship-building plant. Gales Ferry, up river (every June 
the quarters of the Yale crew) is a lovely peninsula. By 




Toivn of Noank, with Palmer's Ship-yard, from Mason's Island 

the mill-pond is the red, gambrel roof of the Richard home- 
stead. Commodore Decatur was blockaded here with a 
prize ship. The British officers of The Wasp carried on 
many a flirtation in old Rodman Neil's kitchen, and at 
least one Gales Ferry lassie met her fate. A remarkable 
oak presides over the old farm of Adam Larrabee, often 
spoken of as "the friend of Lafayette. " 



76 Old Paths of the New England Border 

On your trip up the Thames to the beautiful town of 
Norwich, "The Rose of Connecticut," you skirt the shore 
of Montville, the North Parish of New London, and will 
choose to return by the turnpike road or Mohegan trail, 
over which Miantonomoh fled before Uncas. Near the 
scene of the sachems' single combat, the tribe have lin- 
gered and it is but a few years since the last of the Mohegans 
departed to "the happy-hunting grounds." From these 
beetling cliffs, the warrior shaded his eyes to spy out the 
enemies of mighty Uncas, or to sight in shimmering Pequot 
harbor the white man's sails. 

Behind the Indian church, not far from Chehegan boulder, 
spreads a magnificent view of the Thames Valley.* The 
Uncas granite chair is near the River Fort and the favorite 
grounds of Uncas and his chiefs were the farms at Massapeag 
and Pamechaug, deeded in 1658 to Richard Houghton and 
James Rogers; one on Saw-Mill Brook was purchased by 
Samuel Rogers; these with Joshua Raymond were first 
settlers. Major Christopher Darrow, who distinguished 
himself in the French and Indian wars, belonged to the 
North Parish and Elder Zadoc Darrow to Waterford. 

The Mohegans held seignorial rights of land and the 
Uncas heirs, in 1898, directed a suit against the town of 
Norwich, for encroachments upon their royal burying- 
ground and Yantic river-path. Sampson Occum, the 
Indian preacher, was renowned in England and Mohegans 
attended the Indian school at Lebanon, founded by Dr. 
Eleazer Wheelock. which finally merged through the gener- 
osity of Lord Dartmouth to the pagans into the Dartmouth 
College foundation. 

The eight-mile walk from the pretty Chesterfield district 
to meeting in New London was said to be merely an agree- 
able recreation to the Larimers, "a tall and robust race, " 
and one might agree with them, when the air is balmy with 



Montville 



77 



clover and spiced with the sea. In North Parish (Mont- 
ville) the ridc-and-tie system prevailed: a fanner who took 
his wife behind him on his good family horse and rode half- 
way to the meeting-house, then dismounted and, fastening 
his horse to a bar-post, travelled the last miles "on Shank's 
mare, " leaving his mount for the use of a neighbor and his 
wife on the road behind. 1 



1 History of New London, by Frances Manwaring Caulkins. 
Utley. 



H. D. 




'The clover-blossoms kiss her feet 
She is so sweet." 

Son" — Oscar Laighton. 



NORWICH 



In the long, long city of Norwich, you always meet the 
unexpected ; the old town plot followed the windings of the 
romantic Yantic, the "noisy river" of rushing, falling 
water. Upstart hills and rocks, half-hidden in foliage, 




Typical Road and Trout Brook in Vicinity of Norwich, Conn. 
"Here is a bit for a painter, a lovely vista — the road dips into a little hollow, tun, 
gently, and passes out of sight within the shadow of a wood." — Bradford Torrey 

charm and bewilder the stranger. The first homes crept 
under them for shelter in picturesque abandon; the tiny 
meeting-house mounted guard on top of a cliff, and the bell 
hung from the crotch of a tree. 

It would be impossible in less than two volumes to tell 



Ancient Houses of Norwich 



79 



the story of old Norwich. Her many, many colonial man- 
sions are aristocratic from the door-knocker to keeping- 
room; behind the portals of "Long Society" are rich 'an- 
cestral possessions — "as choice as hens' teeth" according 
to the old saying. If you would know Norwich "first 
families," open Miss Perkins's delightful story of the 
Ancient Houses of Norwich, rich in portraits, miniatures, 
and the original colored map of Norwich by Donald G„ 
Mitchell, as it appeared to him in boyhood days. 

Four of the Presidents of the 
United States turn to Norwich 
as ancestral home. At Lebanon 
was the war office of Governor- 
Jonathan Trumbull, of whom 
Washington would, say when short 
of supplies: "We'll see what 
Brother Jonathan can do." 

Who will not applaud the 
patriotism of Connecticut women, 
especially marked in Norwich! 
Was not Lydia Huntington even 
more beautiful in homespun, dain- 
tily embroidered by her own 
hand, than in foreign stuffs, 
scorned as bitterly as Revolu- 
tionary tea ? The Norwich dames 
were famous for their exquisite 
paper work and shadow portraits, 
once so fashionable. 

In this township the Indians 
had three rude forts: Fort Hill, 
the citadel of Waqueenaw, 
brother of Uncas; Little Fort- 
Hill between Landing and Trading 



LANDMARKS: Dr. Johnson-Lathrop 
house. Thomas Lathrop house. 
Coit homestead. Coit Elms, al- 
luded to in 'Autocrat of the Break- 
fast Table." Lydia H. Sigourney 
house. Home of Captain Joshua 
Huntington and Judge Andrew 
Huntington. White residence. Gen. 
eral Jedediah and Ebenezer Hunting- 
ton house. General Jabez and Gen- 
eral Zachariah Huntington house. 
Farnsworth house, once residence 
of John Lothrop Motley. Slater 
house. Osgood residence. Amos 
Hubbard house. Sachem Park. 
Colonel Joshua Huntington house. 
Governor Samuel Huntington house. 
Old Burying-Ground. Brown Tav- 
ern, later Bela Peck house. Rock 
Nook Home, Gift of Moses Pierce, 
Monument to Major Mason. Old 
Witter Tavern — Hazard house. Bean 
Hill. Yantic Mills on site Backus 
Iron Forge. Winslow T. Williams 
house. Elijah Lathrop house, 
/ernett Lee house. Hon. David 
A. Wells house, N. Washington 
St. On East Main St., Home Gov. 
William A. Buckingham, now Club 
House of the Grand Army of the 
Republic. Old Hyde homestead, 
Navy Yard Lane. Old Burying- 
Ground. Cleveland house, former 
home of Grover Cleveland. Near 
Sachem Park is the Miantonomoh 
Stone on the Providence trail. The 
Crotch of the Rivers. The Hook 
of the Quinebaug. Scotch Cap 
Hill near where bounds meet of 
Norwich, Franklin, and Bozrah. 



So Old Paths of the New England Border 

ising-Giass Rock. wheel-Timber coves belonged to Uncas, and a 

Hill. Butternut Brook. The Great . . , 1 < • • f ,-, 

Darke Swamp. Dragon's Hole at third Stood at the junction of the 

Kewontaquck. Yantic and Hammer Brook. Cae- 

sar Sachem was succeeded by Ben Uncas, "Major Ben," 
followed by Ben Uncas, 2d, who was brought up in the 
family of Captain John Mason, and the first to adopt 
our dress. To-day in that wild Mohegan country a city 
lies serene, 

" Guarded by circling streams and wooded mountains, 
Like sentinels round a queen." 1 

1 Edmund Clarence Stedman. 




WATCH HILL, R. I. 

Here Burned Sig)ial Fires. 



THROUGH GARDINER'S BAY TO GREENPORT 



'Launch thy bark, mariner!" 



Mrs. Southey. 



No short voyage along the New England coast is more 
historic than from New London to Shelter Island and Green- 
port, which seaport in Washington's day was on the shortest 
route from New 
York to Boston 
by way of New- 
port. It is partic- 
ularly interesting 
on account of the 
new fortifications 
on Fisher's Island, 
Great Gull, Plum 
Island (the Isle 
of Patmos), and 
Montauk ; these 
with Napatree 
Point completely 
shut out maraud- 
ers from Long Is- 
land Sound. No 
forts command a 
more strategic 
position. 

As the steamer 
leaves New Lon- 
don Light and Ocean Beach on her starboard bow and 
Watch Hill Light far to port, she comes abreast of Race 
Point, the dangerous long, low beach on Fisher's, and Race 




New London Light. 
'A Street Lamp of the Ocean." 



82 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Rock Light, the salvation of mariners, the masterpiece built 
bv F. Hopkinson Smith, transcending his other inspirations 
even that of yesterday's brush, The Glory of Venice. 

Fisher's Island was a Utopia when John Winthrop, Jr., 
wrote from thence to Lion Gardiner for advice about his 
sick child; but the deer-stalked woodlands disappeared 
under the great gale of 1815, which flung spray against 
window panes eight miles inland. Deep under Fisher's 
Island Sound, innumerable boulders are seen of the same 
race as great Chehegan and others at Mohegan, which seem, 
as it were, strewn by giants' play. Fisher's Island itself 
is a mass of boulders co vered by sand where the heavy ocean 
surf arrested a glacier. It now is a part of Southold, Long 
Island. 

Great Gull and Little Gull are alight in the green water; 
here the British fleet anchored in 1813 and blockaded the 
port, after pursuing several American frigates into New 
London harbor, that had come through the Sound, hoping 
to slip out to sea by Montauk. No enemy could rendezvous 
before the ten-inch disappearing guns on Plum Island. 
Steer discreetly through Plum Gut, the narrow gateway 
of Gardiner's Bay between Plum Island and Orient Point, 
the southern prong of the fork of Long Island. 

Tiny unexpected lakes glimmer about Montauk between 
sandhills rolling like waves of the sea. An old squaw on be- 
ing asked the road from Narragansett to Montauk, answered : 
" Keep out of the woods and the water and you'll get to 
Montauk." The last chief of the Montauks, despairing, is 
said to have departed with three steps: to Shelter Island, 
Orient Point, and to Montauk, throwing himself in the sea. 

Orient Point was formerly Oyster Ponds and the scene 
of Cooper's Sea-Lions. Cooper's hero was Roswell Gardiner, 
and Lothrop says " one is tempted to call the first Lion 
Gardiner a s^a-Lion. " He was a born leader of men without 



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84 Old Paths of the New England Border 

boisterous ambition, a diplomat of the first water, with a 
quick decision and courage, the admiration of the savage. 
The Montauks remained always friendly to the whites, the 
tribe deferring utterly to Gardiner. 1 Wyandanch placed 
his son in his guardianship and left the territory of Smith- 
town to Gardiner, " the most honorable of the English 
nation here about us. " 2 Gardiner was created by eminent 
domain Lord of the Isle of Wight by the Earl of Sterling, 
possessing a grant of all islands between the Hudson and 
Cape Cod; and Gardiner's Isle, 30,000 acres of concentrated 
romance, is possessed still by the Gardiners. 

Gardiner's Bay was the prowling ground of Captain Kidd. 
When the Earl of Bellomont was Governor of New York 
(1699) he complained that Long Island was a " receptacle 
for pirates," and set a watch for Captain Kidd. But his 
was not the wickedest pirate bark that sailed high seas; he 

1 Gardiner's extraordinary insight into the leanings of the primitive 
American appears in his course with the harassing Pequot, the powerful 
Uncas, and his friendship with Wyandanch, "the wise talker. " 

Gardiner prevented the fiendish plot of the Narragansetts to unite the 
tribes and destroy the whites. The Narragansetts were shrewd in seeking 
help from the Long Island tribes, mighty in the financial world; the Five 
Nations came even from the Great Lakes to obtain coin in the "land of 
the periwinkle, " the Montauks' bay-indented shores being long and rich 
in shells, and squaws many, to string the wampum. 

Lion Gardiner, on going over one day to Long Island, by chance saw 
Miantonomoh and three of his great warriors talking secretly with the 
Montauk Sachem and his old counsellors. Wyandanch revealed to 
Gardiner that they urged him to give no more wampum to the English, 
and offered presents if he would join their schemes to become once 
again lords of the soil; otherwise, said the Narragansetts, " we shall be all 
gone shortly, for you know our fathers had plenty of deer and skins, our 
plains were full of deer, as also our woods, and of turkies. . . . But 
these English have gotten our land, they with scythes cut down the 
grass, and their hogs spoil our clam banks, and we shall be starved" : 
Lion Gardiner said "you must not give wampum to Narragansett, " and 
with Wyandanch 's help circumvented their wiles. — Gardiner's Pequot 
War res. 

2 Wyandanch continues in his will: "he apeared to us not only as a 



The Lord of Gardiner's Isle 85 

gave Lady Gardiner Indian sweetmeats i for her children 
and cloth of gold — which she dared not refuse — in return 
for her good mutton. Kidd buried much booty (for 
which the unwise still go a-digging) — gold, silver, precious 
stones, silver candlesticks, gold bars and dust — and con- 
fided his secret to Lord John Gardiner (third proprietor), 
declaring that Gardiner was welcome to the treasure if he 
never returned, but if he ever called and found it missing, 
he would take his head or his son's. 

The Earl of Bellomont sent an express to Lord Gardiner 
to deliver at Boston the treasure of "the sloop Antonio, 
Capt. Kidd, late commander, for the King's use. " Gardiner 
delivered the treasure to appointed Boston dignitaries, — 
Samuel Sevvall, Nathaniel Byfield, Jeremiah Dummer, and 
Andrew Belcher. This ended the Kidd episode, but less 
considerate pirates attacked Gardiner's Isle, slashing the 
proprietor's hands with sabres, and Lady (Allyn) Gardiner 
seized her silver tankard and fled to her maiden home in 
Hartford. 

friend, but a father, in giveing us monie and goods, whereby we defended 
ourselves and ransomed my daughter and friends . . . we haveing 
nothing left that is worth his acceptance but a small tract of land which 
we desire him to accept of for himself, his heires — forever." Signed by 
Wyandanch, his mark, — an Indian shaking hands with a white man. 

1 The Kidd pitcher of Indian sweetmeats has descended through the 
Mumfords, Saltonstalls, Thatchers, Christophers to Mrs. H. Fairfield 
Osborn of New York from Lucretia Mumford Perry of New London, Conn. 



EAST HAMPTON. 

During the Revolution Gardiner's Bay, now a famous 
roadstead and favorite practice-ground for school-ships, 
was the pleasant retreat of a British fleet under Viee- 
x\dmiral Arbuthnot. They feasted on the rich pieserves 
of Gardiner's Island, and the marks of dollars which they 
pitched for recreation are yet on the floors of the dining-room 
of the Manor. 

Their depredations would have resulted far more seriously, 
had it not been for the tact of Parson Buell, father of the 
"Lady of the Manor," who invited the Britons to dine j 
went gunning with them, and accepted invitations on the 
flag-ship, the Royal Oak. 1 "Old Rebel," the young officers 
called him. 

Sir William Erskine, who commanded the post, remarked 
one Saturday to Dr. Buell that he had ordered the men of 
the parish to appear on the morrow with their teams at 
Southampton. "Ah, yes, I am aware of it; but I am 
commander-in-chief on Sunday, and have annulled vour 
orders." General Erskine graciously revoked the order. 
General Erskine said that, after the war, he should build 
a countrv-seat in "the garden spot of America" — in the 
rare old town of East Hampton. 

"Down on the shore, the sunny shore! 
Where the salt smell fills the land. " 

Among the officers billeted at Colonel Abram Gardiner's, 
East Hampton, were Lord Percy, Governor Tryon, Lord 
Cathcart, and Major Andre, who was much beloved, and 
the wine-glass exchanged by Major Andre with Colonel 
Gardiner is still treasured. 

i Memorandum of Lion Gardiner. 

86 



A Gardiner Homestead 87 

A son of the house, Dr. Nathaniel Gardiner of the Con- 
tinental Army, came home in disguise, on leave of absence. 
After " Dr. Nat " returned to his post Andre quietly remarked 
that he would have been pleased to have made that young 
man's acquaintance, but as a British officer, his duty would 
have compelled him to arrest him as a spy. * It is said that 
Dr. Nathaniel Gardiner was ordered to attend Major Andre 
at Tappan the night before his execution. 

Colonel Gardiner's grandson David was one of the Presi- 
dent's party accidentally killed on the frigate Princeton in 
1844. His daughter married President Tyler. 2 Their 
engagement had been a profound secret. After the wedding 
breakfast, served at the Gardiner mansion in Lafayette 
Place, the bride and groom drove down Broadway behind 
four white horses and embarked on a ship of war. 

Many besides Gen. Erskine have been infatuated with 
this "love of a place." Pudding Hill is occupied by a 
beautiful summer home, and Thomas Moran set his 
studio among the honeysuckles; St. John Harper chose the 
Amagansett Road, the Albert Herters, the old Briclge- 
hampton road, close to Georgica, a lake enchanting. 

East Hampton's shining literary days began with Lyman 
Beecher, Cornelia Huntington, and General Jeremiah Miller. 

It was an event in carpetless East Hampton when Mrs. 
Beecher covered the usual sanded floor with a carpet for 
which she spun the cotton and painted a border in oils 
with bunches of roses. Old Deacon Tallmadge came to see 

1 "The Manor of Gardiner's Island," by Martha J. Lamb, American 
Magazine of History. 

2 The Gardiners have intermarried with Van Cortlands, Van Rens- 
selaers, Livingstons, and Beekmans of New York, the Smiths of St. George's 
Manor, the Flovds, Thompsons, Sylvesters, Nicoils of Long Island, the 
Greenes of Boston, and the Conklings. George Bancroft was a descendant 
and Gardiner Greene Hubbard, past president of the American Geo- 
graphical Society. 



88 



Fire-Place, Loner Island 



Mr. Beecher and seemed afraid to come in. He stopped at 
the parlor door. 'Walk in, Deacon, walk in." — 'Why, I 

can't,' said he, 'thout steppin' on 't. ' Then, after sur- 
veying it awhile in admiration, 'D'ye think ye can have 
all that, and heaven too?' " * 

A sermon on Duelling, following the duel of Hamilton 
and Burr, made Lyman Beecher famous; he tried it first 
on his people at the hamlets of Amagansett and Montauk 
and finally sent it over to Gardiner's Island to be criticised 
by John Lyon Gardiner, his literary parishioner, before 
publication. On the return it was dropped into the w r ater 
from the sailor's pea-jacket pocket and miraculously tossed 
up on shore above high-water mark and quite dry, being 
wound with yarn. The picturesque custom was to light a 
seaweed fire at Fire-Place, the point nearest Gardiner's 
Island, as a signal to the skiff of the Manor that visitors 
wished to wait on Lord Gardiner. 

1 .4 utobiograpliy of Lyman Beecher. 








OYSTERS SET ON SHELLS ON NATURAL BED. 



SAG HARBOR. 

The first newspaper on Long Island was printed at Sag 
Harbor — Frothinghanis Long Island Herald, — with the 
prelude . 

"Eye Nature s walks, shoot folly as it flies, 
And catch the manner's living as they rise. " 

Its columns are etchings of the times: "To be Sold. 
A valuable wench in her 19th year. She is very active 
and understands the whole business of a kitchen. En- 
quire of the Rev. Zachariah Greene of Southold " (1792). 
" Strayed, a lame geese, one wing cut. Benjamin Nicoll, 
Shelter Island." 

A poor printer of Boston, David Frothingham, of the 
aristocratic family whose daughters were declared "the 
beauties of Charlestown, " settled at Sag Harbor, after 
running away with Nancy Pell, a daughter of Pelham 
Manor ; he was finally lost at sea. 

Lieutenant Daniel Fordham and nearly all the 2nd 
Regiment of the minute-men of 76, who fought in the battle 
of Long Island, were "raised in Sag Harbor." 1 The Ford- 
ham family purchased many acres of the Indians at Hemp- 
stead. Sloop Polly, Captain Nathan Fordham, plied 
between Sag Harbor and Albany. The valuable Indian 
implements picked up in the Hamptons by Mr. William 
Wallace Tooker the Indianologist 2 are the property of the 
Brooklyn Institute. He recently acquired at Barcelona 

1 An Island Heroine: A Romance of Long Island, by Mary Breck 
Sleight of Sag Harbor. 

2 Mr. Tooker's interesting "Aboriginal Terms for Long Island," "The 
country of the ear-shell, " may be found in the Brooklyn Eagle Almanac. 

S 9 



Southold, Long Island 9 1 

Beach a peculiar semi-lunar Algonquin knife, called by the 
Esquimaux, Uloo. 

Steaming slowly away from Sag Harbor in late afternoon, 
glancing backward across the pretty North Haven bridge, 
the Shinnecock Hills become violet as evening approaches. 
Sailing on through Shelter Island Sound over " the large 
inland sea, adorned with divers fair havens and bays and 
fit for all sorts of craft," as said Cornelius Van Tienhoven 
in 1650, a landing is made at Southold, and you catch an 
enticing glimpse of the village up Town Creek, one of the 
pretty inlets which attracted settlers when Southold became 
a part of the New Haven Colony. 

On the final relinquishment of Long Island by the Dutch, 
there was a landing of ceremony at Southold. From across 
the Bay "where five hundred ships may safely ride abreast" 
approached the skiff with the "Keneticut" Commissioners, 
Ex-Governor Wyllys and Fitz John Winthrop, the English 
flag astern, followed by the Dutch in a barge manned by 
the colored sen-ants from Sylvester Manor, both nations 
having been entertained over night on Shelter Island. 

There are a few homesteads standing in Southold — 
Colonel John Young's of 1650, and those of the Benjamin 
L'Hommedieu and Boisseau families. The monument 
to the Founders stands on the site of the first meeting-house 
in the oldest burying-ground on Eastern Long Island. An 
interesting coincidence of the 250th anniversary celebration 
was the delivery of the oration by the Rev. Richard Salter 
Storrs, of Brooklyn, in honor of the town and church of his 
ancestor, the Rev. John Storrs. 

In walking about the delightful little seaport of Green- 
port among the boat-builders, you question which is of the 
more intense blue, the sea or the sky. When Greenport 
was Sterling, Colonel George Washington stopped on his 
r< >ad to Newport, in 1757, at Lieutenant Booth's Inn standing 



9 2 



Greenport, Long Island 



on Sterling Lane. His servant announced his boat, and 
Washington, with much grace, took each lady by the hand, 
saluted her with a kiss, gravely asked their prayers, and 
bade them an affectionate adieu. This was related by 
Miss Havens, one of the Greenport young ladies. Before 
"Ye Clark House" hangs the original sign and quite after 
the fashion of a quaint, delicious English country inn it is. 
Greenport is as famous for its exportation of ousters to 
Liverpool, as Orient for perfect potatoes. 




TOWN CREEK, SOUTHOLD, L. I. 



SOUTHAMPTON, 1640 

The pioneers who marched through Southampton forest, 
and stopped at the Old Town Pond, were from Massachu- 
setts; and the Bay Colony became so infatuated with the 
soft climate (by virtue of which the inhabitants of Eastern 
Long Island attain fivescore years), that a vessel sailed 
regularly between Lynn and Conscience Point, Southampton. 
Governor Winthrop himself voyaged around Long Island 
in the Blessing of the Bay. If Southampton were beauti- 
ful then, it is surpassingly so now, for the fresh-water lake, 
Agawam, close to the roll of old ocean, is bordered by green 
lawns of tasteful homes ; white skiffs skim the blue surface ; 
a protecting sand-bar shines between the shore road and the 
salt surf; the lovely church, St. Andrew's by the Sea, is hard 
by; a life-saving station recalls wintry perils in contrast 
to the Meadow Club House, centre of serene summer pleasure. 
Along these superb Long Island beaches, some fifty years 
ago, were little whaling huts, and whale-boats on wagon 
wheels, ready to man at a moment's notice. 

It would be impossible to mention the families of dis- 
tinction from New York whose leisure days are spent by 
Southampton Beach, circling Agawam Lake, and about its 
sequestered Hampton Park, on the way to North Sea. 

A few quaint roofs, the Presbyterian Church, built in 
1707, and Wind Mill Lane show the antiquity of Southamp- 
ton; the homesteads of the day of Rev. Abraham Pierson 1 
and Rev. Robert Fordham, built facing the south, or the 
beach, have been turned to the main street, except the 
Job Sayre house, after whom Job's Lane was named. 

The little village of Water Mill has its story and Canoe 

1 First minister of Southampton and first rector of Yale. 

93 




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An Ideal Art-Village 



95 



Place, the narrowest path between Shinnecoek and Peconic 
Bays, where the Indians carried their canoes across. In 
this region is a canal prehistoric to the white man, cut by 
Mongotucksee, great chief. 

Unique among the airy Shinnecoek Hills, an ideal art- 
village was originated by Mrs. Hoyt, somewhat after the 
French fashion, yet truly American, and with enthusiastic 
fervor the students paint moorlands, meadows, sand-dunes, 
woods, and tangled rushes of Long Island, boats stranded 
on sunset marshes and beached on its bays; also the gray 
huts and life of the Indian Reservation, for which Mr. 
William M. Chase, as instructor-in-chief, obtained the 
privilege. 




The Manor of Shelter Island. New York. 
The Horsford Summer Residence. 



SHELTER ISLAND 

There was a young poet of Orient who spoke of his 
native shore on one prong of Long Island as "enchanted 
ground," and truly on an enchanted sea floats the bewitch- 
ing isle, Manhansack Ahaquashuwamock, being translated 
"the island sheltered by islands," hence Shelter Island; 
between Montauk and Oyster Ponds (Orient) it lies like 
a pearl clasped by its Long Island shell. 

The founding of an historic house on Shelter Island by 
Nathaniel Sylvester came about during the trying Cromwell 
epoch when certain English estates were confiscated, and 
their owners, loyal to the King, took refuge in Holland and 
then purchased land in America. 

Shelter Island was sold to the Sylvesters by Deputy- 
Governor Goodyear of the New Haven Colony for 1600 
pounds of "good merchantable muscovada sugar." About 
this time Parliament issued a warrant for the arrest of 
Thomas Brinley, auditor of the king and much loved and 
trusted by the royal family ; to his ancestral home in Stafford- 
shire Charles II. had fled after his defeat and he was obliged 
to live in exile. His lovely daughter, Grissell, a girl of 
sixteen, was immediately claimed by her affianced one. 
Nathaniel Sylvester, and they took passage on the Swallow 
accompanied by Governor William Coddington and his 
bride, Anne Brinley, and Francis Brinley, her brother, 
founder of the Brinley family in America. In a terrible 
storm off Newport the vessel was wrecked and priceless 
heirlooms devoured by the greedy sea. The bridal pair 
escaped to live happily in their beautiful Manor adorned 
with scriptural Holland tiles and doors from Barbadoes, 
(the new home of a brother, Constant Sylvester) The 

96 



The Manor of the Sylvesters 97 

scented "box" which they planted grew tall and precious 
as years rolled on and when the writer visited the garden 
a few years ago was still superb after two hundred and 
fifty years, probably the oldest box on the continent. 1 

Much friendly intercourse took place with their neighbors, 
the Winthrops on Fisher's Island, and a pathetic paragraph 
from Sylvester begs advice because the baby is sick 
and in danger of strangling, " and here we are quite out of 
ye way of help. " Winthrop was presented with a hogshead 
of sugar by Constant Sylvester, the brother at Barbadoes. 
The sugar business was very lucrative and timber for hogs- 
heads was furnished from Shelter Island. 

Brinley Sylvester caused the present mansion-house 
with its avenue of cherry trees to be ornamented with 
elaborate carvings. On the death of his grandson, General 
Sylvester Dering, it was purchased by Ezra L'Hommedieu, 
and inherited by Professor Eben Norton Horsford of the 
L'Hommedieu line. 

It appears that by chance an exiled Huguenot, Benjamin 
L'Hommedieu, settled at Southold, where the Sylvesters 
attended worship ; one day he saw approaching two beautiful 
girls, Patience and Grissell Sylvester, in a canopied barge 
rowed by six colored servants. His heart was lost at first 
sight to Miss Patience, who became Mrs. L'Hommedieu. 
Quite as romantic was the sad parting at the old stone 
bridge of Grissell Sylvester with her fiance, Latimer Samp- 
son, proprietor of the estate known of late years as Lloyd's 
Neck. He went south to die, leaving his property to 
Grissell, who married James Lloyd 2 of Boston. 

Nathaniel Sylvester bequeathed Sachem's Neck to a 

'"The Manor of Shelter Island," by Martha J. Lamb, Magazine of 
American History, vol. xviii. 

descendants are the Hillhouses and Woolseys of New Haven, Living- 
stons, Onderdoncks. and Brownes of Xew York. 



98 Old Paths of the New England Border 

friend, William Nicoll, 1 a patentee of Islip, who married a 
Van Rensselaer. 

The ancient landing-place of Sylvester Manor has borne 
its part in the family history. One may imagine the wel- 
come of the Quaker exiles, George Fox and the persecuted 
vSouthwicks, harbored and consoled by the Sylvesters. At 
these steps, worn by many feet, were received Governor 
Dongan, also Sir Edmund Andros, and if you wish to know 
how many meetings and partings of lovers they have seen 
go and ask the babbling tide, the steps will never tell. A 
haunted mirror in the guest-chamber is said to reflect at 
midnight some fair lady's image of " auld lang syne. " 

Other families of Shelter Island have been noted for 
hospitality: the Nicolls, Derings, and Havens; but Shelter 
Islanders loved not invaders. When the pigs were about 
ready to kill the British chose Shelter Island for a foraging 
expedition. The burning question was how could the pigs 
be concealed, for pigs will squeal, and the ladies had before 
seen pigs strung at the yard-arm. A witty dame concocted 
the brilliant idea of ripping up the feather beds and sewing 
in the pigs, and these went comfortably to sleep while the 
troops searched the house, thus preserving the winter's 
bacon. 

Veritably, Long Island is a long romance. Its western 
end shared closely in the social life of early New York. 
There were the gay " bride-visitings" from one country house 
to another, 2 and the most delightful balls and routs. Wash- 
ington himself regretted the snow-storm which prevented 
a dance, because there were only two chariots in New York. 
Picture the gallants in sheer ruffles and small-clothes aglint 

•The Xicoll inheritance is the W. K. Vanderbilt, Jr., estate, "Idle 
Hour." 

: The Story of a New York House, by H. C. Bunner, Charles Seribners" 
Sons. 




99 



ioo Old Paths of the New England Border 

with diamond buckles leading with formal grace through 
the cotillion these statuesque dames, who wore their brocades 
and filmy laces with the bearing of queens, not only because 
of the aristocracy of culture, but on account of a judicious 
application of the backboard in girlhood. 

There was a pretty bride-taking from Long Island. It so 
happened that Walter Franklin, 1 a man of fortune, was 
riding in his chariot on an excursion through Long Island, 
when he caught sight of a maid milking cows in a barn-yard. 
He asked her who occupied the house. With great sim- 
plicity, she replied, "My father, Daniel Bowne; wilt thou 
not alight and take tea with him?" The invitation was 
accepted, and after three visits he asked her in marriage. 
So the Quaker milkmaid rolled away to take possession of 
the most elegant house in the city, on Cherry Street, near 
Pearl. Her daughters swerved from Quakerism, and became 
fashionable belles. One married De Witt Clinton. 

'Uncle of Rear-Admiral S. R. Franklin and General Franklin. From 
Memoirs of a Rear- Admiral. Copyright by Harper & Brothers. 



GUILFORD, 1639 

Omiic tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci. 
He makes a good breakfast who mixes pudding with molasses. 

I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel, 
My morning incense, and my evening meal, 
The sweets of Hasty-Pudding. 

Some talk of Hoe-cake, fair Virginia's pride, 
Rich Johnny-cake, this mouth has often tri'd, 
Both please me well, their virtue much the same, 
Alike their fabric, as allied their fame. 
Except in dear New England, where the last 
Receives a dash of pumpkin 

But place them all before me smoakiug hot, 
The big round dumplin' rolling from the pot: 
You tempt me not — my favorite greets my eyes, 
To that loved bowl my spoon by instinct flies. 

The Hasty-Pudding, by Joel Barlow, the "Hartford 
Wit." Written at Savoy, 1793. 







UILFORD is to-day your goal 
out of New York. Along- 
shore you have had fleeting 
glimpses, ever since you sped 
out of Stamford, of gambrel 
roofs and lean-tos in Old 
Fairfield and Stratford and 
Milford ; yet, as the train 
steams on east, leaving you 
to saunter up Whitfield 
Street into the heart of Guil- 
ford, you are surprised to be 
apparently transplanted 
backward into the seven- 
teenth century ; you instinct- 



io2 Old Paths of the New England Border 



ively look around for some lady mounted on a pillion 
behind her squire to alight at the Old Stone House, assisted 
by an expectant cavalier in steeple-crown and rapier, or 
expect at least to meet in Petticoat Lane a yellow chaise. 
How oddly certain houses skew cornerwise to the street, each 
built by compass to face the east. These old houses form 



MM'. 







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77z<? Grace Starr House built in 1687 on Crooked Lane, otherwise State St., 

Guilford. 

the meridian line or noon-mark " and every urchin on the 
lane can tell the dinner-hour by watching for the dead line 
which at twelve o'clock crosses the street like a scissors- 
blade. " 

There is a wedding to-day in the Stone House, the first 
in New Haven Colony; the teacher, young Master Higginson, 



The Men of Kent 103 

is to wed Parson Whitfield's daughter Sally, and the merry 
board is set forth with rye bread, pork, and peas. 

Sara Whitfield has a fair dowry and setting up, for Colonel 
Fenwick of Saybrook gave the lands of Hammonasset, which 
he bought of Uncas, to Guilford only on condition that his 
friend Mr. Whitfield should have a large slice. Lady Alice 
Fenwick also had presented Master Higginson, her fellow- 
passenger and sometime chaplain at Fort Saybrook, 1 \\ ith 
several valuable cows which she brought over from 
home. 

Her passage was taken on a pilgrim ship of great im- 
portance to the Colony for the St. John of London, Captain 
Richard Russell, sailed direct to Quinipiac bringing Mr. 
Whitfield and many men of learning and means from Kent 
and Sussex, quite as disaffected with the government and 
Star Chamber as Davenport who writes to Lady Vere Sept. 
28, 1639 : " my deare child is safely arrived with sundry desir- 
able friends — such as Mr. Fenwick and his lady, to our great 
comfort. Their provision at sea held good to the last — we 
sent a pinnis to pilot them to our harbor, for it was the first 
ship that ever cast anchor in this place. The sight of ye 
harbor did so please ye captain of the ship and all the Pas- 
sengers that he called it Fayre Haven." It is said that these 
passengers, many of whom were younger sons, and became 
world-renowned, were put to great expense to proem e a 
blacksmith for their new town, for "there was not a mer- 
chant or mechanic among them." They chose a place, 
Menunkatuck, about sixteen miles easterly from " Quilli- 

1 The Rev. John Higginson succeeded the Rev. Henry Whitfield in 
Guilford and then sailed for England, but was driven by adverse winds 
into Salem harbor, the chosen home of the famous pioneer, Francis Higgin- 
son — previously Vicar of Claybrook Church, Leicester, — where his father's 
people persuaded him to remain. He succeeded the Rev. Hugh Peters, 
who had returned to England only to be tried at the "Old Bailey, " and 
sentenced "to be hung, drawn, and quartered for treason. " 



104 Old Paths of the New England Border 

piack" (New Haven), lying between Ruttawoo (East River) 
and Agicomick (Stony Creek), "and there set clown." 

The long-since-departed early companions of Whitfield's 
house were the homes of Governor Leete, William Chitten- 
den by West River, Robert Kitchel on the corner of Petti- 
coat Lane, and that of the Chief Magistrate, Desborough, 1 
afterwards Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland under the 
Lord Protector. John Hoadley, one of the "seven pillars" 




The Samuel Hubbard House (iyiy) on the home-lot of Jacob Sheaffc, 
Broad St., residence of John B. Hubbard, Esq. 

of Guilford, became chaplain of Cromwell's garrison in 
Edinburgh castle; Guilford appears more nearly linked to 
events under which the Protectorate evolved itself, than 
any town of the new colonies. Henry Whitfield himself, 
one of the most eloquent clergymen that came to Connecti- 
cut, driven by the bitter persecution of Archbishop Laud, 
relinquished a rich living at Ockley in Surrey where his 

1 The other "deed signers" were John Bishop and John Caffinge. The 
Kitchels founded Xewark, X. J., with Abraham Pierson and his Branford 




Sea-Holly or Marshmallow on the banks of West Rtver. 



105 



106 Old Paths of the New England Border 

house concealed such persecuted men as Cotton, Hooker, 
Nye, and Davenport; the climax arrived when Whitfield 
refused to read from the Book of Sports. The exodus of 
non-conformists would have come about seven years earlier 
had not Laud's predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, 
George Abbot, exercised sympathetic leniency to the clergy 
of Puritan leanings. 

Mr. Henry Robinson says that " Guilford was born with 
a book in her hand," 1 the founder Whitfield having pub- 

LANDMARKS: The First Church lished a SeCOnd edition of a "little 

(1830); f.rst building erected 1643, bundle of sermonettes dedicated 

first tower clock in America, 1726. 1-1-1 

(Historical sermon by Rev. F. E. to Lord Bl"Ooke, fllll Ot quaint 

Snowon-TheOldMeeting-Housesof CQnceits Qr p oeS ieS. " And this 
First Church, Religious Herald, r 

Jan. 26, i8qo.) The old stone was in the day of Shakespeare, 

House built by the Rev. Henry t» t -ij_ 1 -r> t 

Whitfield, 1639, property of the Milton, and rare Ben Jonson. 
state of Connecticut. Contains mu- w^en Whitfield returned from 

seum of antiquities. On the land 

apportioned to the Rev. John New England he wrote his plea 

Higginson stood the homestead , -n 1 • r t 1 ■ n r 

of the son of the apostle Eliot, Rev. to Parliament for Indians, tor 

Joseph Elliott, who married a the good of the SOuls of the pOOr 
daughter of Governor Brenton, and, 

2d, Mary, daughter of Governor Wild CreatlireS . . . goillg 

Wyllys (1664) at Elliot Corner; d d ^ th h { 

property of Edward Eliot. The 1 

present house was built (1726) for of darknesse at their heels." 

Abiel Eliot who married Mary Leete, 



Benjamin Franklin purchased 



great-granddaughter of Gov. Leete. 

Their granddaughter was the 

mother of Fitz-Greene Halleck. In fifty COpieS of the first essay of 

this house is an Eliot "Court- ^ Rey .^ EHot q£ Guil 'f ord 

cupboard rare. The Green- J 

Charles Fowler house (1735)- Major and KillingWOrth [present Clill- 

followers. William Chittenden was known as Lieutenant, fought in the 
Netherlands, and was an ancestor of Governor Thomas Chittenden of 
Vermont and the Hon. Simeon Baldwin Chittendien, representative to 
Congress. Jacob Sheaffe, a grandson of the Canon of Windsor, William 
Wilson, and one of the "seven pillars" of Guilford Church, sold his rights 
and established a notable homestead in Boston. Jacob Sheaffe of Boston 
purchased the old Wentworth Mansion at Portsmouth, N. H., for his 
daughter Nancy, the wife of Charles dishing. 

1 Guilford and Madison in Literature, by Henry P. Robinson of Guilford, 
a descendant of Thomas Robinson, 1666, and the Rev. Henry Whitfield. 



Guilford Homesteads 



107 



Lathrop-Ralph D. Smyth house 
on house-lot of Thomas Jones, 
pioneer. Christ Church was organ- 
ized at the William Ward house, 
near present residence of Miss 
Annette Fowler facing the Green; 
Broad Street .'Timothy Stone house 
(1740). Daniel Hubbard housed?!/ 1 ; 
residence of John B. Hubbard. 
Tuttle house (1781), property of 
Miss Clara I. Sage. Chittenden 
homestead. Samuel Desborough's 
home-lot on "Mr. Desbrough's 
Lane" (Water St.), purchased by 
Dr. Bryan Rossiter, 1651; William 
Dudley residence. Fair Street : Rus- 
sell-Frisbie house, residence of 
Benjamin C. West. Davis house 
(1759)- Griffing house, residence 
Henry Eliot, and Mrs. Sarah 
Fowler. Birthplace of Frederick 
A. Griffing, a leading founder of the 
New Haven & New London Railroad; 
its first President and associated 
for many years with John I. 
Blair of New Jersey in the building 
of western railroads; the largest 
business man Guilford has produced. 
Johnson house (1746)- Birthplace 
Samuel Johnson, Jr. Stewart Fris- 
bee house, residence Edward M. 
Leete. Guilford Institute and High 
School. Gift of Mrs. Nathaniel 
Griffing. York Street : Samuel Rob- 
inson homestead (1752)- Shelley- 
W. N. Norton house (i77S>- West 
Side: Dr. Sproat-Spencer house 
(1700), famous button-ball trees. 
State Street: On Henry Doude 
home-lot, Anne Kimberly-Benton 
house (1740). Titus Hall home- 
stead (1696). Comfort Starr home- 
stead (1764); home of the Seven 
Starrs, Seven Sisters. Philo Bishop 
house (1671). Union Street: Kim- 
berly homestead (1732). Collins- 
Cookhouse (1700). Boston Street : 
Loyzelle-Burgis-Morse house. Cald- 
well-Lathrop house (1760), whence 
descended a branch of the L'Hom- 
medieus of Norwich and Lathrops 
of New York and New Rochelle. 
Fiske-Wildman homestead. Clap- 
board Hill or "Dudley Heights." 
Justin Dudley house. Alderbrook 



ton, founded by Edward Gris- 
wold, who came from Kenil- 
worth, England]. Of Guilford's 
shaking meadows Eliot writes: 
" I began last Fall (1747) to 
drain another meadow of forty 
acres up in Guilford woods. 
This was a shaking meadow; 
a man standing upon it might 
shake the ground several rods 
around him. It seemed to 
be only a strong sward of grass 
laid over a soft mud of the 
consistence of pan-cake batter. 
There is reason to believe that 
the shaking meadows have been 
formerly beaver ponds 
I was pitied as being about to 
waste a great deal of money 
. . . I ditched it, the ditch 
serving as a fence, and then 
sowed red clover, foul meadow 
grass, English spear and herd 
grass. If life and health be 
continued, I design to try 
liquorice roots, barley, Cape 
Breton wheat, cotton, indigo 
seed and wood for dyeing; as, 
also watermelon seed, which 
was originally from Arch- Angel, 
in Russia." His "darling sub- 
ject" was the planting of mul- 
berry trees for silk culture in 
Guilford, of which we are 
reminded in "Mulberry Farm," 
long the home of Eliots and 
Footes. 



io8 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



Cemetery; Fitz-Greene Halleck's 
grave. Moose Hill: General Eli 
Fowler-Kelsey house (1760) . Fow- 
ler homestead (1765); birthplace 
of Sophia Fowler, a deaf-mute, the 
wife of Rev. Thomas Hopkins 
Gallaudet; her sons were Rev. 
Dr. Thomas H. Gallaudet, pioneer 
in the instruction of deaf-mutes, and 
P. W. Gallaudet of New York City 
and Dr. Edward M. Gallaudet. 
Nutplains: John Miles-Hall house 
(1745), residence of Dr. N. Gregory 
Hall. Davis homestead (1646). 
Parmelee house (1750). Evarts 
house (1756). Phelps house (1748). 
Sachem's Head: "Shaumpisheu 
Farm, ' Guildford, property of Mrs. 
Thomas H. Landon, for several years 
summer home of Bisho 1 Woodcock of 
Kentucky. Egleston and Crampton 
houses on Long Hill Road to North 
Guilford. Whealen house, old 
road to North Branford. Hungry 
Hill, Bluff's Head. Note: It is im- 
possible to mention all Guilford's 
houses. There are at least 84 Pre- 
Revolutionary houses in Guilford 
and 46 in East Guilford (present 
Madison) and 13 in North Madison. 
Bassett homestead of six generations 
(1680). 

MADISON : The five most an- 
cient houses standing in the pleas- 
ant town of Madison are the 
James Meigs-Bishop house (1690), 
Boston Street, North Bradley home- 
stead, Hammonasset (1680), Deacon 
John Grave house (1680), residence 
of Miss Mary E. Redfield, Captain 
Griffin-Scranton house (1759), and 
the Deacon John French-Captain 
Meigs house (1675). The Wilcox 
and Watrous houses of 1770 
and the Hand homestead (1764). 
First meeting-house erected 1705, 
"between John Grave's house and 
Jonathan Hoit's." John Grave was 
chosen to beat the drum, "for twenty 
shiling a year." 



The most distinguished pupil 
of Jared Eliot was Guilford's 
" studie-man, " the Rev. Samuel 
Johnson, first president of King's 
(later Columbia) College. Bishop 
Berkeley said that he was " one 
of the finest wits in America." 1 
"Through him," says Dr. Andrews, 
in his History of Christ Church, 
Guilford, "came about the ex- 
tended use of the service of the 
Church of England in Connecticut, 
Samuel Smithson, of Mulberry 
Point, having loaned Dr. John- 
son a Prayer Book, one of the 
16 volumes comprising his library. 
Johnson was called by President 
Dwight the "father of Episco 
pacy" in Connecticut. 

Teaching was hereditary in 
the Johnson family, but this was 
a farming community, and the 
farmers who kept sheep sent 
wool to the Johnson mill to be 
fulled, colored blue with indigo 
and black with logwood ; a blue 
homespun coat with brass but- 
tons was the pride of every old 
gentleman. 

Master Samuel Johnson, of 
a later generation, was a ^ieree 



1 Other early writers in Guilford were the Rev. John Cotton, son of the 
famous John Cotton who "prayed in Indian," like Roger Williams, and 
also Samuel Hoadley: educated at Edinburgh and father of the Arch- 



Old Guilford 



109 










IBM 






""• JS2 



Samuel Robinson homestead of 1752, on site of the home-lot of 1664 of 
Thomas Robinson; residence of Henry Pynchon Robinson, Esq., 

York St. 



CLINTON: Jared Eliot homestead. 
Redfield-Stevens house. Hill-Stevens 
homestead, Prospect Hill. Stanton 
house, John Stanton Collection of 
Connecticut antiques; on this site 
were held sessions of future Yale 
University by the Rev. Abram Pier- 
son, first rector, when the foundation 
was in Saybrook. 



Federalist and believing the 
country to be "going over to 
Infidelity and Revolution," he 
set the urchins this copy; 
"Demons, Demagogues, Demo- 
crats, and Devils." His fa- 
vorite pupil was Fitz- Greene 



bishop John and the Bishop Benjamin Hoadley; Rev. Thomas Ruggles, 
who left a manuscript history of Guilford. The Hon. R. D. Smyth wrote 
the History of Guilford, 1877. A later history is by his grandson, Bernard 
C. Steiner, now head of the Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore. Other 
writers — Charles Wyllys Elliott, Rev. Abraham Chittenden Baldwin, and 
the poet, George Hill. 



no Old Paths of the New England Border 

Halleck, 1 to whom he presented Campbell's Pleasures of 
Hope. Johnson was unusually thin: and being much 
bothered by a persistent tin pedlar to buy finally said; 
"Have you a pair of tin boots?" "Yes, just to fit you," 
and brought out a pair of tin candle-moulds. 2 

Many are the tales of the country store. One day came 




Ruttanoo brook or East River A T utplains. Close to the bridge, the little boat 
was always found waiting by the children of the Ward, Beeeher, and 
Foote families. Across the bridge on the pasture slope is the family 
burying ground. 

'Whittier wrote lines to Fitz-Grccne Halleck "at the unveiling of his 
statue, " ending: 

"But let no moss of years o'ercreep 
The lines of Halleck's name. " 

2 Samuel Johnson (great-nephew of Dr. Johnson) wrote the first school 
dictionary, 1708. One copy remains in the British Museum, one at 
Yale University, and one in the Hartford Athenaeum. His grandfather 
Nathaniel (1744) was warden of Christ Church. — Samuel Johnson, Jr., 
and his Dictionaries, by Henry Pynchon Robinson, Connecticut Maga- 
zine, i8gg. 



The Country Store 

a little boy with three eggs to barter: " Please, Sir, a penny's 
worth o' rum, a penny's worth o' gum, and the rest in 
sal-soda. " 

The village much admired Miss Catherine E. Beecher, 
and even to-day they talk of her driving down to the Green 




The hospitable side-porch of the Foote homestead. Built by George 
Augustus Foote. He afterward removed to Mulberry Farm giving the Nut- 
plains farm to his sous. "Farming is the only business a man ought to 
follow," said he. 

from Xutplains to buy a spool of thread of Miss A. lest some 
one else should buy it of a man, when a woman was in 
business. 

A lady summoned a jaek-of-all-trades to repair her fence. 
After contemplation he enquired, "Well, marm, will you 
hev it hen-tight or cow-tight?" "As we haven't any 
hens, I think cow-tight will do. " 



ii2 Old Paths of the New England Border 

After the railroad was built, a Guilford worthy scorned 
the train, for, said he, "My white Dolly is safer when 
she stumbles, than the rail cars when they go down an 
embankment. " 

NUTPLAINS 

A serene and lovely hamlet in Guilford is at Nutplains, 
where hickory and walnut trees unite with ancient elms to 
guard the spacious street. The eldest elm is one hundred 
and sixty-two years, and that noble one standing before 
the Meigs farm was planted by the grandfather of Fitz- 
Greene Halleck. The Indians used to fish all up and down 
both sides East River, and you could not walk across the 
lot without picking up an arrow-head. On the hither side 
of the "Iron Stream" rises "Fence Rock," so steep that 
the cattle cannot get up it on account of the ledges ; volcanic 
action is evident in the valley. 

Long ago, two homesteads stood in Guilford, one at 
Nutplains on the banks of Ruttawoo Creek, and the other 
on the north corner of Guilford Green, being closely related 
to each other, and to our literary annals. On the Green 
was the home of Eli Foote, whose wife was Roxana, the 
daughter of General Andrew Ward. 

It was General Ward's regiment that remained at Trenton 
to deceive the enemy by keeping up the camp-fires, while 
Washington withdrew the army. It is related of Colonel 
Andrew Ward, who served in the Old French War, that he 
took his grog rations in silver and brought home six table- 
spoons engraved Louisbourg. 

When Eli Foote died, General Ward took his ten grand- 
children home to Nutplains, one of whom, Roxana, became 
Mrs. Lyman Beecher. General Ward used to laughingly 
say of his three eldest granddaughters, that when the 



Roxana Foote Beecher 



i*3 



girls first came down in the morning, Harriet's voice would 
be heard — "Here! take the broom: sweep up: make a fire: 
make haste!" 

Betsy Chittenden would say: "I wonder what ribbon it 's 
best to wear at a party? " But Roxana (who became the 
mother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher) 
would say: "Which do you think was the greater general, 

Hannibal or Alexander ?" 
This incident is related in 
the Autobiography of Ly- 
man Beecher, 1 perhaps the 
best picture of early days 
in Connecticut bequeathed 
to us. The quaint fasci- 
nating wood-cuts of the various 
homes at New Haven, Nutplains, 
East Hampton, Litchfield, and 
Anc lover make it all very real. 
Miss Catherine Beecher drew 
from memory the Ward home- 
stead — "Castle Ward" the chil- 
dren playfully called it. 

General Ward brought up his 
grandchildren on the most meaty 
and inspiring of intellectual pab- 




Roxana Foote (Beecher) the 
mother of Mrs. Stowe, spin- 
ning flax and conning 
French verbs, at "Castle 
Ward," Nutplains. 



ulum, for he had the delightful 
custom of reading aloud with remarks and discussion. He 
read the whole public library through, but was of rather 
careless habits in household matters. He came home 
from the Legislature "with his saddle-bags loaded with 
books on one side and nails on the other. So, when 



1 Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., of Lyman Beecher, D.D. Edited 
by Charles Beecher. Copyright by Harper & Brothers. 



ii4 Old Paths of the New England Border 



<-v 



he had taken his hammer and gone all over the place 
mending and patching, he would come in and read all the 
books." It was said of Eli Foote also: "Give him a book 
and he is as happy as if he owned Kensington Palace." 
So that his children's children had by rights a " born fac- 
ulty" for pen and pulpit. 

The girls' favorite sport was the spinning-mill built by 
General Ward in a ravine on a little brook with machinery 
for turning three or four spinning-wheels by water-power. 

Roxana learned to speak French fluently from a refugee 
from San Domingo who settled in Guilford, and she studied 
as she spun flax, tying her book to her distaff. 

The Ward house of delightful memories has disappeared 
but the tiny river flows on. You may cross the bridge, 
close to which the little boat was always found waiting by 
the children of the Ward, Beecher, and Foote families for 
four generations. 

Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote were married at Nut- 
plains by Parson Bray. " Nobody ever married more heart 
and hand than we," said Lyman Beecher. He had met 
Roxana when staying with his uncle Lot Benton at North 
Guilford, where Lyman's passion for fishing developed, and 
grew rampantly; even after he became famous he would 
occasionally come in to the weekly lecture at Litchfield 
fishpole in hand and rest it against the pulpit. Mr. Beecher 
says : 

" The first time I went fishing, Uncle Benton took me down 
to Beaver Head, tied a brown thread on a stick, put a 
crooked pin in it and worms, and said ' There, Lyman, throw 
it in.' I threw it in and out came a shiner. ... I 
always liked 'training day' because I could go fishing. 
Fished all day till dark, and felt sorry when night came." 

The Indians lingered long in Guilford after Whitfield's 



The Totokets at Murray Farm 



"5 




The front entrance of the Foote homestead, Nutplains, residence of Airs. 
Andrew Ward Foote. Here Harriet Bccchcr (Stowe) and all the children 
used to visit "Grandma Foote". Here she heard first the ballads of Sir Walter 
Scott. 

' ' The lovely little white farm-house under the hill was such a Paradise to 
us, every juniper bush, every wild sweetbrier, every barren sandy hillside 
every stony pasture spoke of bright hours." — H. B. S. 



band came, for they loved the creeks, their canoe-paths. 
The Totokets crept down over the trail — the shortest road 
to the beach — from their picturesque village " to pick clams 
and oysters" on the shore, stopping often at the pure and 
delicious spring on the Murray farm. 

According to the legend of the farm the master of the old 
Jonathan Murray house once fell ill, and was cured by a pass- 
ing Indian witch-doctor. On leaving she thrust her staff of 
buttomvood into the ground, vowing that " as long as this 
branch shall flourish so long shall the land go to the blood, 



ii 6 Old Paths of the New England Border 

but a curse shall fall on him who cuts it down." This button- 
wood tree yet gives grateful shade to the wayfarer. This was 
the home of Mr. W. H. H. Murray, long known as "Adiron- 
dack Murray, " the first to reveal the charms of the Adiron- 
dacks. Neck River runs at the foot of the farm, on which 
the first millwright built. 

The story of Sachem's Head is of the davs of Uncas who 








Tltc little District Sclwol with wood-house, 
Xortli Guilford. 

clung to his rights in the Hammonasset lands "to hunt, 
fish, use trees for canoes, rushes for flags" in the deed of 
sale to Colonel Fenwick. Uncas was leading Captain 
Stoughton's troops on their chase of the Pequots when he 
discovered that the wicked old Mononotto (who had dis- 
puted with him over the territory of New London) was in 



Sachem's Head and Leete's Island 117 

hiding with his warriors on the (Guilford) shore towards 
Stony Creek. Uncas waylaid them as they attempted 
to escape by swimming across Bloody Cove, shot the chief, 
and placed his head in the crotch of a tree. 

From Sachem's Head in 1777, Colonel Return Jonathan 
Meigs (of a Guilford family) led an expedition against Sag 
Harbor in sloops and whale-boats; they succeeded in burn- 
ing all British vessels in the harbor, stripped a foraging 
party of De Lancey's Brigade, and captured the hospital 
on Brick Hill. 

A month later three ships of the enemy landed at Sachem's 
Head and burnt Solomon Leete's house. In 1781 the 
British landed at Leete's Island, burning the house of Mr. 
Daniel Leete; they advanced toward Guilford and w T ere re- 
pulsed by Captain Peter Vail and Lieutenant Timothy Field. 1 

Agnes Lee, the wife of Captain Samuel Lee of the Harbor 
Guard, was a noted foe to Tories. Powder was stored in 
the attic: one dark night a Tory knocked at her door, when 
Captain Lee was on duty; "Who 's there?"- -"A friend. "- 
"No, a friend would tell his name," answered Mrs. Lee ( 
and fired. An hour later, an old doctor of North Guilford 
was summoned to attend a mysterious gun-shot wound. 
When the British landed at Leete's Island, Captain Lee 
fired the agreed signal; "Grandma Lee responded by blazing 
away on the cannon set at the head of Crooked Lane, for 
she had not a son, and Uncle Levi was a cripple. " 

During the War of 1812 the story goes that as George 
Griswold was hoeing corn on his farm at East Creek, the 
church bell rang violently and the flag was raised on Clap- 
board Hill ; snatching his sword Griswold mounted his black 
horse, gathered the militia company, a score of men with 

'In 1688, the tyrannical days of Andros, commissioners were sent from 
Hartford to obtain the charter concealed at Andrew Leete's but Captain 
William Seward marshalled his company, and with drawn sword escorted 
them out of town. 



i iS 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



rusty muskets. On reaching Leete's Island, they saw a 
vessel manning her boats to make a landing. Realizing 
that they would be no match for the invaders, they manoeu- 
vred by marching down through a hollow, then up in sight, 
then down and around again until the enemy became im- 
pressed that the Guilford forces numbered nigh on a thou- 
sand men. At the same time the one "nine-pounder" at 




The birthplace of David Dudley Field, D.D., ''The Woods" district, East 

Guilford, present Madison, Conn., built by his grandfather, David 

Field, in 1725. 

the Green fired shot after shot, and the British changed 
their tactics and spread sail and away. Lieutenant Gris- 
wold's sword still hangs in his homestead. 



Several Deerfield colonists sought a ha\-en on the Sound, 
where there was little danger of awakening to find a toma- 



The Fields in Guilford 119 

hawk flourished over one's head. No family suffered more 
than the Fields, many of whom were carried to Canada. 
Ebenezer Field came to East Guilford and married Mary 
Dudley, a descendant of two Governors of New Haven 
Colony; David Dudley Field was horn in "The Woods" 
district, was graduated at Yale, then became pastor at 
Haddam. Captain Timothy Field, his father, served under 
Washington, and either abroad or on the farm appeared in 
"cocked hat," short breeches, long stockings, and bright 
silver shoe-buckles. He was Sergeant-major of the Sev- 
enth Regiment of Connecticut, and after the defeat on Long 
Island, was stationed between Fort Washington and East 
River to watch the British troops which held the city of 
New York, and took part at White Plains. 

Many interesting and historical homesteads stand in 
Madison and North Madison. The beautiful green town 
street is adorned by the Memorial Library to Erastus 
Scranton. John Scranton came with Mr. Whitfield in 
1639. It is said that six brothers settled here " within speak- 
ing distance. " The first minister, the Rev. John Hart, was 
the sole member of the senior class of Yale in 1702, and the 
first regular graduate. When the Rev. Jonathan Todd 
"was upon trial, in order to setel, " Capt. Janna Meigs 
(otherwise "ye Worshipfull Janna Meigs"), Deacon John 
French, and Left. Thomas Crutenden were chosen to treat 
with Mr. Todd upon his " principels. " 

NORTH GUILFORD 
"Still sits the school-house by the road. 

Within the master's desk is seen. 

Deep scarred by raps official ; 
The warping floor, the haltered seats, 

The jack-knife' s carved initial. " 

Whittier, /;; School-Days. 

At the summit of Long Hill road lies a quaint and pretty 



120 Old Paths of the New England Border 

village, North Guilford with its district school. Here all 
the world seems fashioned for Whittier's barefoot buy; his 
is the feast of freshest berries and hickory nuts, wild- 
flowers, scarlet strawberries and golden pippins, woodehucks 
and shiners. It was in Ouinebaug Outlet that Lyman 
Beecher caught his first perch, and one may imagine the 
jolly spelling-school and frolics at huskings — no law was 
ever kept so well as that of the red ear, while the dry husks 
rustled and sweet-cider went round. What heroes from 
this woodland sprung! Many a boy became eminent who 
learned the Rule of Three in "the great barn of a school in 
North Guilford," though "nobody ever explained anything, 
we only did sums," says Lyman Beecher; all the sons of 
the village blacksmith Michael Baldwin became prominent. 
Abraham Baldwin aided Milledge to found Georgia Uni- 
versity, and his pet sister Ruth, with whom we are best 
acquainted through the songs, madrigals, and letters of Joel 
Barlow, poet and philosopher, was of a great piquancy, 
amiability, and beauty, making her an object of admiration 
in the polite circles of Europe. She ensnared the heart of 
the poet when he was at Yale College in the remarkable class 
of 1778, 1 inspiring a remarkable passion, which survived an 
adventurous career, during which he negotiated the treaty 
with Algiers and became minister to France, when Napoleon 
was France. He writes to his love ever with merry badinage, 
philosophy, and tenderness. An early letter, when she is 
on a visit to North Guilford, affects jealousy. (The Bald- 
wins were then living in New Haven.) "Do, Ruthy, tell 

'Barlow excelled in mental rivalry even such men as Oliver Wolcott 
(Governor Oliver Wolcott, one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, married Lorraine, daughter of General Augustus Collins of 
North Guilford) Noah Webster, Zephaniah Swift. Uriah Tracy, and Josiah 
Meigs. His favorite tutor was Joseph Buckminister, who took charge 
of the class when sent to Glastonbury during the Revolutionary dis- 
turbances. 



Joel Barlow to Ruth Baldwin 



121 



me sincerely," he urged, "don't some of these mountain 
swains invite you to ramble in their green retreats, entertain 
you with fine stories about Arcadian nymphs and rural 
innocence? . . . But you must remember, ma amie, 
that your old friend Apollo was a poet as well as a shepherd 
and in winter time the most likely place to find him will be 



HBEB|BBHH^ 




The Birthplace of Gilbert Munger, Opening Hill, North Madison, Conn. 

A painting of Niagara Falls ordered by the Prussian Government first 
made hint world-famous. Munger's paintings of Venice were exhibited 
in London on the entreaty of Ruskin. The reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg- 
Gotha conferred on him Knighthood with the title of Baron. 

at college, so I advise you to return to New Haven as soon 
as you receive this letter. . . - 1 " 

Ruth's father objected to her "rhyming lover," in spite 
of his position as chaplain in Poor's Brigade, but Barlow 
returned to New Haven when the army was in winter 

1 Life and Letters of Joel Barlow, LL.D., by Charles Burr Todd, G. P. 
Putnam's Sons. 



122 Old Paths of the New England Border 

quarters and they were secretly married and — forgiven. 

On Joel Barlow's first visit to Paris, he writes that 
he was " accompanied by Master George Washington 
Greene, twelve years old, who goes to Paris for his 
education, being addressed to the Marquis de Lafayette." 
General Greene's youngest son, and the son born to 
Lafayette during the Revolution, were both named George 
Washington. " This fact abided with Lafayette, and after 
General Greene died, he applied to Mrs. Greene to allow 
him to take her son George to France, where he might be 
educated with his George, so as to perpetuate the love 
which had illustrated the lives of their fathers." This came 
about as they wished, but unfortunately a few weeks after 
young Greene's return home, when on a pleasure party, the 
yacht capsized and all perished. 

Mrs. Barlow was in the first weeks not enamored of Paris; 
she writes to Mrs. Dr. Dwight at Greenfield Hill: " O, it is 
altogether disagreeable to me. It is only existing. I have 
not an hour to call my own except when I sleep. Must be 
at all times dressed and see company. . . . We are 
pent up in a narrow, dirty street surrounded with high 
brick walls. . . . O, how ardently do I wish to return 
to America." Paris being unsafe in 1701, they removed 
to London, where they were frequent guests of Copley in 
Hanover Square, and saw much of Trumbull and Benjamin 
West. 

In later years when Mrs. Barlow lived on their beautiful 
estate Kalorama — where Jefferson and Madison had often 
consulted with the statesman, Joel Barlow, — her thoughts 
turned backward to girlhood days in Connecticut. She 
saw the village smithy, the school-children watching the 
flaming forge and the wonderful yellow sparks struck from 
her father's anvil; the drives to the shore, the gathering of 
driftwood on the sand-beach, the steaming clam-chowder, 



Paul Revere on the King's Highway 123 

each child so hungry that his spoon of clam-shell seemed 
silver-lined. In winter, light snowflakes falling, merry 
sleigh-rides, the horn sounding and hells tinkling, on frosty 
nights, ending in a frolic with blind-man's-buff, twirling 
the plate, and forfeits ; and once more an eager hunt for 
snowdrops and pussy-willows coaxed out by that shy 
coquette, the bewildering New England Spring. 

"Hark, 't is the bluebird's -venturous strain, 
High on the old fringed elm at the gate — 

Dodging the fitful spits of snow, 
New England's poet-laureate!" 

Aldrich. 

Late in the year of our Lord 1773, an unknown horseman, 
half-frozen, stopped to bait his horse in Guilford. It was 
the first patriotic ride of Paul Revere. He brought the 
audacious news to Connecticut that King George's tax-laden 
tea had just been salted down in Boston harbor by unknown 
Mohawk champions of Liberty, and it would seem as if 
Paul Revere 's own war-paint as patriotic promoter of the 
affair was of so deep a dye that it could never be scrubbed 
off. Dr. Holmes says 

''The waters of the rebel bay 

Have kept their tea-leaf savor. 
Our old North-Enders in their spray 
Still taste a Hyson flavor." 

Revere was quickly off over the turnpike to Philadelphia, 
bearing secret dispatches to men who were soon to set the 
country seething by speeches, in that first Continental 
Congress. 

This assemblv met at the suggestion of the " father of 
all the Yankees," as Carlyle called Benjamin Franklin, who 
had written from London to the Massachusetts Assemblv 



124 



Old Paths of the New England Border 




The Lot Benton house at the sluice at the foot of Harbor St.; removed 
from the north end of Guilford Green by a yoke of 35 oxen ; residence of 
Captain Jeremiah Rackctt. 

that it was full time to meet and act. Virginia was the 
first in sending forth trumpet summons. 

What next! Ebenezer Hurd, the fortnightly post-rider 
out of Saybrook, had ridden forty-six years through New 
Haven to New York and back, and never "heerd tell sech 
doin's. " Every good man along the Sound rose daily 
expectant and took down his rusty flint-lock and the boys' 
guns from their hooks on the summer-beam to set them 
"hendy"; mother surreptitiously rubbed them up a bit 
with tears in her eves. 

It was before daybreak on Friday, April 21, 1775, that 
Lieutenant Israel Putnam's cry "to arms" echoed in 
Middlesex County, Connecticut; just as the cry of Paul 
Revere on his midnight gallop had roused Middlesex County 
in Massachusetts. Lieutenant Putnam received at the 
plough his message from Israel Bissell (who had ridden so 
hard from Watertown to Worcester that his horse fell in his 
tracks) and handed it over to the regular New T York post- 
rider; people hastened from distant farms into Guilford, 



The Lexington Alarm, Connecticut 125 



Branford, and New Haven to hear the news of the Lexington 
fight and Minute-men began to strap on haversacks for 
the long march to Boston, while the post sped on covered 
with mud and foam through Milford, and Stratford; Sunday 
at noon the Lexington message was countersigned at Fair- 
field by Jonathan Sturges. On and on the war messenger 




The Worthington Bartholomew house 1774, on His Boston-New York turnpike; 
residence of Rev. Dr. George C. Griswold. A remarkable "apple-tree elm." 

rode through Norwalk, Stamford, Westchester — down Bow- 
ery Lane, past Governor Stuyvesant's pear orchard, the Tea- 
Water Spring, 1 and over the Kissing Bridge, 2 shouting his 
news regardless of Tory scowls, clattering down Broadway 
to Bowling Green. 3 

'Water drawn from this pump was said "to make better tea" than 
from any well in Xew York. 

2 Toll: "Salute your partner. " 

3 The historic Green of the Burgomaster, centre of Nieuw Amsterdam, 
the heart of old Xew York. 



i26 Old Paths of the New England Border 



What an excitement in the market-place ("T'Marck 
felt")! 1 The Whigs repeated it in the very ears of His 
Majesty George III., who might well have risen in his leader 
stirrups with haughty amazement at the audacity of his 
Colonial subjects. The New York loyalists disdained to 
countenance the facts and waited for confirmation. Mean- 
while Isaac Low signed the message. On Tuesday at two 
of the clock arrived a second war dispatch, indisputably 
endorsed by Pierrepont Edwards at New Haven on Monday 
at nine and one half o'clock. The Long Island ferry awaited 
impatiently the news packet near Fly (Fulton) market. 
From end to end of Long- Tsland stirring scenes ensued — 
from Brooklyn Htiylus to Lasthampton and among the 
retainers of the Lord of Gardiner's Isle. Town meetings 
from Faneuil Hall far South rang with "Liberty!" Troops 
assembled and Washington was summoned to command. 
1 Site of the present New York Produce Exchange. 




The door-k)iocker of " Mulberry 
Farm," the fared Eliot-Footc Jiousc. 
This knocker teas removed from an 
older house on Guilford Green. 



NEW HAVEN (QUINNIPIAC), 1637 



" There was a wood, in which now the little ones gather in spring, and in 
autumn, heaping baskets of nuts. There was a strip of sea in sight, on which 
I can trace the white sails as they come and go without leaving my library 
chair ; and each night I see the flame of a lighthouse kindled. " 

Ik Marvel at Edgewood, New Haven. 

A great charm of the City of Elms is the reach of blue 
sea — -"Adrian's Sea," a poetical and ap- 
propriate pseudonym for Long Island Sound. 
The sea gives a final touch of kingly grace 
to the old New Haven Colony, and to her 
towns entangled 'mid lofty rocks, wooded 
hills, and tidal rivers. 

The stranger within New Haven's gates 
is immediately impressed by the vista across 
the broad and beautiful Green, flanked by 
row upon row of superb elms planted largely 
by the people under the leadership of James 
Hllhouse. 1 

Three churches of varying creed now 
stand upon the aforetime Puritan market- 
place, where the austere stocks and whip- 
ping-post once nodded to the Town Pump 
and aided the one meeting-house — surmount- 
ed by its Indian Watch Tower — in discipline 
of Church and State. Unlike Boston Com- 
mon, the New Haven Green was designed, says 
the Rev. Dr. Bacon, not as a park, but for 




Library Tower, at 

Yale. 

Ivy grown from 

the grave of 



buyers and sellers, for such public uses as were Sir Walter Scott. 

1 Many of the elms planted between 1787 and 1796 came from the 
Hillhouse farm in Meriden. The Rev. James Austin planted inner rows 
on the Green. Among those who as boys participated were Judge Henry 

127 



128 Old Paths of the New England Border 

reserved to the Roman Forum and the Agora at Athens. 
Nevertheless, being convenient, as on Boston Common, 
cows were pastured on the Upper Green, and a student 




United Church on the New Haven Green, erected 1815. The Law 
School of Yale University on Elm Street. 

transported one to the belfry of the Old Chapel, at which 
the unhappy cow protested as loudly as The Popes Mule 
of Avignon. 

Pressing close upon the colonists' Green are classic, ivy- 
Baldwin, Ogden Edwards, and President Day. The first meeting-house 
stood where the flag-pole is, and Ezekiel Cheever's school-house 
hard by. 



Colonial Blue Laws 129 

gowned halls, half concealed by the elms of the long Temple 
Arch, and in the quadrangle hidden by these younger halls 
of Yale University are the plain bricks of beloved South 
Middle (Connecticut Hall), the sole survivor of "old Brick 
Row." Facing the Green on the north is the Pierpont 
house and other of the older homesteads of the city. 

Contemplating the present community of tolerance one 
may scarcely countenance the fact, as written in the Town 
Records, that in the rigid years when this veritable Green 
was subject to Blue Laws, Elder Malbon caused his daughter 
Martha to be brought before three magistrates and sen- 
tenced to be publicly whipped, 1 because with her cousin 
she attended a forbidden house-warming escorted by a 
young man! Another delinquent was whipped for the 
diabolical outrage of lighting his pipe on the public street 
from a pan of live coals. Others were branded on the 
forehead for theft. It was many years before the punish- 
ments of the old country were discarded. The closing 
scenes of Decker's Old Fortunatus 2 the villain in the stocks, 
is akin to actual dramas of Colonial days in America, the 
gate to which has been thrown open to us with Hawthorne's 
key. 

It has been a strange procession of years, this passing 
from under a royal sceptre to the government by the people ; 
from Puritan edicts to our fraternal age, in which fellows 
of all climes and creeds are "well met" on Yale's campus 

It is the prettiest climb imaginable by woodland ways 
to the summit of East Rock, for which the poet Hillhouse 3 

1 Recorded by the Town Clerk and included in Mr. Cogswell's interesting 
historical novel, The Regicides. 

2 Old Fortunatus was marvellously well presented in the rich garb of the 
day on the grounds of Tufts College, by the undergraduates, in June, 
1906. 

3 James A. Hillhouse, the son of James Hillhouse to whom Xew Haven 
is so much indebted, was the author of Percy's Masque and other dramas. 
9 



130 Old Paths of the New England Border 

of Sachem's Wood, suggested the name of "Sassacus" and for 
its twin, the West Rock, "Regicide." At your feet, sub- 
merged under countless elms lies a bustling city, its core 
the old "Nine Squares," stockaded and with guard- 
houses. You may draw imaginary lines around the Green 
and the other "quarters": Yorkshire quarter, Herefordshire 
quarter, and Mr. Gregson's and Mr. Lamberton's quarter, 
and the Governor's quarter which held Theophilus Eaton's 
mansion of nineteen fireplaces. Eli Whitney built his 







The Soldiers' Monument on East Rock. 

house in a portion of the Governor's quarter. President 
Stiles remembered the thirteen fireplaces in Mr. Davenport's 
house, for these built large houses to correspond with their 
accustomed style in London. Governor Eaton like Governor 
Edward Winslow of Plymouth played the part of diplomat 
and explorer for the new Colon)'. 

At one corner of the Green, close to the inlet where the 
company landed, once stood a mighty oak on " Widow 



New Haven's Historic Oak 13 l 

Hannah Beechcr's lot," 1 at the present corner of Chapel 
and George streets; here the planters assembled on the first 
Lord's day to listen to the celebrated London preacher, the 
Rev. John Davenport. The stump of this great oak severed 
by time from its canopy of leaves, held the anvil of Nathaniel 
Beecher. His grandson David used the same anvil placed 
on the same oak stump. 

He lived well according to the times and laid up four 
or five thousand dollars. In those days, six mahogany 
chairs in a shut-up parlor were considered magnificent: 
he never got beyond cherry. He was one of the best read 
men in New England. . . . Squire Roger Sherman 
used to say that he always " calculated to see Mr. Beecher, 
as soon as he got home from Congress, to talk over particu- 
lars. " He kept up with his student-boarders in their studies, 
and was very absent-minded: coming in from the barn he 
would sit down on a coat-pocket full of eggs, jump up, and 
sav, "Oh wife!" "Why, my dear," she would reply, "I 
do wonder you can put eggs in your pocket." 2 

The bricks stamped London discovered in razing the 
Atwater homestead recall the ballasting of the good ship 
Hector and her consort with building bricks, for John Daven- 
port and his opulent company. On the shipping lists the 
names of men of note appeared in disguise, for the ship was 
liable to be searched by order of the Lords of the Privy 
Council for non-conformists obnoxious to the Government. 3 
It was with a sigh of relief that the port was cleared with 

'In seating the meeting-house in 1646 the first seat was assigned to 
Old Mrs. Eaton, and Widow Beecher was on the list of those "permitted 
to sit in the alley (upon their desire) for convenience of hearing. " 

2 TIic Autobiography of Lyman Beecher. 

3 Doubtless the names of Davenport and Eaton were not on the lists. 
These had long been concerned with colonial projects, holding an interest 
in Winthrop's Arbclla, which led the fleet of 1630 to Salem. 



132 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



all sail set and the ship's bow pointed toward Governor Win- 
throp's town, ere King James, alarmed at losing from his 
kingdom so many subjects rich in brains and property, 
published a decree forbidding men of their value to pass to 
plantations in his new Colonies without a license. 

The good people of Boston besought the influential 
company of the "famous Mr. Davenport" to abide in 




The old home of Roger Sherman, "The Signer" and the 
first Mayor of New Haven. The house was built by 
him in i/Sp and stands on CJiapel Street, near Higli, 
remodelled into stores. 

Massachusetts. Newbury even agreed to give up the 
town. But the Bay was in a hubbub on account of the 
controversy precipitated by Mistress Anne Hutchinson 1 
and at that moment Captain Stoughton returned from the 
campaign against the Pequots with the same glowing ac- 
counts as Captain Underhill, who wrote that " Queenapiok 
hath a fair river, fit for harboring of ships," etc., and his 



'Mistress Hutchinson was banished and the master of the Dove, Captain 
Richard Lord, was fined for bringing over "the troublesome Anne Hutch- 
inson. " 






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134 Old Paths of the New England Border 

interested audience, the London company, finally decided 
to purchase lands beyond Saybrook. The first winter in 
New Haven messages to their friends in Boston were prob- 
ably carried by Indian runners, whom Roger Williams had 
known to run eighty miles or more on a summer's day. 

Strange adventures were those of the Regicides Major- 
Generals Whalley and Goffe. Royal commissioners pur- 
sued them from Boston to New Haven and three times 
orders for their arrest arrived. Twice concealed at West 
Rock, on the boulders of Judges' Cave they carved the 
days of the calendar. Feigning to go to Manhattan, they 
returned to the house of the Rev. John Davenport. In 
another refuge at Hatchet Harbor in the Woodbridge Hills, 
provisions were conveyed to them by Richard Sperry; they 
took the Indian trail over which Thomas Tibbals had led 
the colonists to Wepowagee (Milford) . Here they remained 
two years (Judge Treat was in the secret) , concealed in the 
Tomkins house, never venturing out even in the orchard. 
This game of hide-and-seek must have been an uneasy and 
chilling period of existence; finally they fled to Hadley, 
where the Rev. John Russell protected them for the rest of 
their lives. The third Regicide, Colonel John Dixwell, 
never dared reveal his identity in New Haven; although 
he lived here from 1673 to 1689. The stone above his grave 
behind Centre Church on the Green 1 is marked simply, 
/. D., Esq. Mrs. James Pierpont used to wonder what her 
good husband found to talk about at such length — across 
the fence — with the mysterious "James Davids." 

On the Lexington alarm the Governor's Guard of New 
Haven and a company of volunteers, Benedict Arnold as 
Captain, hastened to Cambridge. Nathan Beers, Jr., was 
with them and was afterwards one of the guards of Major 

1 Chronicle of New Haven Green, by Henry T. Blake. 



The Beers Elm 



'35 



Andre. The original pen-and-ink sketch of Major Andre 
drawn by himself with the aid of a mirror and given by 
him to Jabez Tomlinson of Stratford, officer of the guard at 
Tappan, was passed to Nathan Beers of New Haven, and is 
in the Yale Library. The Beers elm on Hillhouse Avenue is 




Collins Homestead, 1694, 
West Haven. 



Sarin Rock, Long Island Sound. 
Where the British Landed. West Haven. 

the loftiest of its kind. The Jocelyn 1 portrait of Nathan 
Beers descended to his grandson Dr. Robert Ives. 2 
Extracts from the Connecticut Gazette in war-times: 

July 5, 1775. His Excellency, Gen. Washington, Major- 
Gen. Lee, Major Thomas Mifflin, on their way to the Provin- 
cial camp near Boston, "were escorted out of New Haven by 

1 Nathaniel Jocelyn the portrait painter, was born in New Haven in 
1796. His miniature was painted by G. Hunger in 1817. " A Patriarch of 
American Portrait Painters," by Ellen Strong Bartlett, The Connecticut 
Magazine. 

2 William Ives came over in the Trnelove to Boston in 1635, and 
joined the New Haven company. His son Joseph Ives married Mary 
Yale. 



136 Old Paths of the New England Border 

a great number of inhabitants, two companies dressed in 
their uniforms, and a company of young gentlemen belong- 
ing to the Seminary . . . whose expertness in military 
exercises gained them the approbation of the Generals. " 

June 28, 17 So. " Yesterday passed through this town 
on their way to join the American army, the Duke Laezon 
(Lauzun) with his Legion, consisting of about 600. The 
strictest order and discipline was observed among them/' 

Nov. 29, iySi. Notice of meeting of the Commissioners 
concerning the confiscation of the estate of Benedict Arnold, 
" late of New Haven now joined with the enemies of the 
United States of America," at the dwelling house of Pier- 
pont Edwards, Esq. 

The invasion of New Haven was accomplished by Gen- 
erals Garth and Tryon; when the fleet appeared off Savin 
Rock on July 4, 1779, one signal of alarm was the lantern 
hung in the old Woodbridge oak. Tryon landed at Light- 
house Point and Garth marched his forces across West 
Haven Green; the families in the first houses they entered 
were compelled to prepare them a good dinner; in the old 
Kimberly house 1 bullets mark their passage. Parson 
Williston, made prisoner, was released by gallant Adjutant 
Campbell's order. 

Great was the excitement in New Haven. Colonel Salmi 
called on the militia, and Captain Phineas Bradley fortified 
West Bridge. Ex- President Daggett of Yale 2 peppered 
away solus at the British near Milford Hill: an English 
officer, surprised at the curious independence of the old 
gentleman, cried out. "What are you doing, you old fool, 

1 A quaint portrait hangs in West Haven of Mary Kimberly Reynolds, 
gowned in satin-petticoat, laee sleeves and cap, a peculiar ring on her 
forefinger with Masonic devices. The ring, lost in a cornfield, was re- 
covered twenty years later. 

2 President Dwight wrote a famous national song of 10,000 lines dur- 
ing: the Revolution. 



Garth's Invasion of New Haven 
S5P 



3/ 




An Old-fashioned Garden, Milford, Conn. 
"Grandmother's gathering boneset to-day; 
In the garrett she '11 dry and Jiang it away, 
Next winter I 'II 'need' some boneset tea — 
1 wish she would n't always think of me/" 

Edith M. Thomas. 

firing on his Majesty's troops?" "Exercising the rights 
of war," said President Daggett. "If I let you go, you 
old rascal, will you ever do it again?" "Nothing more 



138 Old Paths of the New England Border 

likely," said the professor. He was dragged out from his 
cover and injured fatally. 

The Blue Meeting-House parsonage was ransacked. 
Many houses were pillaged and Madame Wooster, 1 wife of 
General David Wooster, first Major-General of the Con- 
necticut troops, who fell at Ridgefield, was roughly treated; 
she sent her niece on horseback to Farmington with an escort, 
and stood by the guns with Prissy, who would not desert 
her mistress. 

Mrs. Seeley of New Haven was a great Tory. She walked 
out of church when a thanksgiving was offered after Bunker 
Hill. "I came here to learn the way to heaven, not to 
Bunker Hill," said she. 

General Garth departed by New Haven's celebrated Long 
Wharf, considered one of the great enterprises of that 
age. It is made up of the parts of the Island of Malta, the 
Rock of Gibraltar, ballast from Sicily, gravel from Dublin, 
and rocks from St. Domingo and other islands of the West 
Indies. Commodore Hull ran a West Indiaman from 
this port, prior to his command of " Old Ironsides." On 
Long Wharf the "Merchant Princes" 2 congregated on 
business; and on rainy days, called "rat days" from the 
immense number driven out of their holes by the high 
tides, the merchants discussed trade at the Tavern, and 
pledged the success of the army. 

1 Mrs. Wooster was a daughter of President Clap of Yale, lineal de- 
scendant of John Howland and Mary Whiting of the Governor Brad- 
ford line. The Mary Clap Wooster Chapter, D. A. R., is named for her; 
a sketch of Mrs. Wooster is in the volume Patron Saints of Connecti- 
cut Chapters, D. A. R. 

2 "Long Wharf has produced such men as Elias Shipman, Henry Dag- 
gett, Ward Atwater, Thomas Ward, Solomon Collis, Benjamin Prescott, 
Lockwood De Forest, Russell Hotchkiss, Timothy Bishop." Thomas 
Rutherford Trowbridge, a Secretary and President of the Xew Haven 
Colony Historical Society, wrote with authority on the Ancient Maritime 



President Stiles's Diary 



139 



Professor Ezra Stiles wrote in his Every-day Diary in 
1777 concerning his election to the Presidency of Yale 
College: "An hundred and fifty or an hundred and eighty 




The William Walter Phelps Gateway at Yale. 

Young Gentlemen students is a bundle of Wild Fire not 
easily controlled or governed, and at best the Diadem of a 

Interests of New Haven, his family being long connected with shipping 
interests. 



i4° Old Paths of the New England Border 

President is a Crown of Thorns." President Stiles liked 
the intensely aristocratic laws of English Universities, and 
frowned down the Freshmen when they complained of the 
fags put upon them. When he was inaugurated, the pro- 
cession returned to the Chapel in the following order: 

The four classes of Undergraduates consisting of 116 
students present; Bachelors of Arts: the Beadle and the 
Butler carrying the College Charter, Records, Key, and 
Seal: the Senior presiding Fellow; one of the Honorable 
Council and the President Elect; the Reverend Corporation; 
the Professors of Divinity and Natural Philosophy; the 
Tutors; the Reverend Ministers; Masters of Arts; Respect- 
able Gentlemen. 

Many interesting customs are continued at Yale. The 
ivy-covered buildings of the Skull and Bones, Scroll and 
Key, and Wolf's Head reveal no secrets, but on Tap Day in 
May the undergraduates assemble at the Senior Fence on 
the thrilling occasion of passing down the honors of the 
Senior Society by "tapping" on the campus, and a severe 
"go to your room" from the Senior to the lucky Junior, 
chosen for dignity of character, by tradition's decree. 
Exclusive rights of fence have increased as the fence dimin- 
ished. President Timothy Dwight abolished the mediaeval 
system of "fagging" for the freshmen and the "Bully" is 
no longer elected to rule in disputes between "town and 
gown. " 

Steeple crown hats are seen no longer in Chapel at 5 
a.m., but the unique and dignified custom of " bowing to the 
President" takes place at the close of morning prayeis. 
The President descends, and proceeds up the Senior aisle, 
the Seniors bowing from the waist to the floor as he passes. 
In early days the students were fined for any misdemeanor. 
One of the early penalties was a fine of one penny "for 
tardiness in coming to prayers." "Scholars when in their 



Rations at Old Yale 



141 



chambers shall talk Latin." 
" Every undergraduate shall be 
called by his Sir-name unless 
he be the son of a noble man 
or Knight's eldest son." 1 In 
1742 it was ordered that the 
steward shall provide the com- 
mons for the scholars — "for 
supper 2 quarts milk and one 
loaf of bread for four. When 
milk cannot be had then apple 
pie wh. shall be made of if 
pounds of dough, \ pound hog's 
fat, 2 ounces sugar and half a 
peck of apples." After all is 
said, those who live in Kipling's 
"pie belt" assert that nothing 
can surpass in flavor a good 
apple pie. A f aimer was over- 
heard to say on sending a wagon 
load of melons to the metropo- 
lis, " Would you believe it, them 
dudes in the city ruther'd hev 
melons than pie for breakf a.st ! ' ' 

When Jonathan Edwards was 
a student at Yale, he wrote to 
his father at East Windsor for 
a pair of dividers, also a book 
on the Art of Thinking. " P. S. 
What we give a week for board, 
is £0. 55. od." 

In contrast to the present 

1 " Orders and appointments to be 
observed in ye Collegiate School in 




Was. at the Wa' 



i4 2 Old Paths of the New England Border 




A Sheffield Tea-Service Used in the old Maltby Mansion, 
Fairhaven, Conn. 

splendid buildings and scientific equipments at Yale Univer- 
sity, Lyman Beecher's account is interesting. " Yale Col- 
lege then [1703] was very different from what it is now. 
The main building then was Connecticut Hall, three sto- 
ries high, now South Middle College. . . . As to ap- 
paratus . . . there was a four-foot telescope, all rusty : 
nobody ever looked through it, and if thev did, not to 
edification. There was an air pump, so out of order 
that a mouse under the receiver would live as long as 
Methuselah." 

At the base of East Rock in a romantic vale, Lake Whitney 
and Mill River trail like a serpentine ribbon. At the head 
of tide-water stand the picturesque mills of Eli Whitney, 
where he retrie\ ed his fortunes by the manufacture of 
firearms, because his early and mightiest invention brought 
him nothing but vexation of soul. The writer saw the 
crude hut on the banks of a pleasant brook in Augusta, 
Georgia, in which Mr. Whitney first experimented with his 
cotton-gin. The story is told by a granddaughter of Gen- 
Connecticut. " From the Field Papers in possession of the Connecticut 
Historical Society. Also Professor Dexter's Yale Biographies and Annals. 



i44 Old Paths of the New England Border 

eral Nathanael Greene of the consummation of Whitney's 
experiment at the beautiful and hospitable Dungeness on 
Cumberland Island, over-canopied with live-oaks and olive- 
trees. Mrs. Greene had become interested in Mr. Whitney's 
enterprise and invited him to spend the winter at Dungeness, 
"where an abundance of cotton and quiet were assured." 
One morning he descended headlong into the drawing-room 
from his workshop in the fifth story and excitedly ex- 
claimed, "The victory is mine." In deep sympathy, guests 
and hostess went with him to see the model in motion, by 
which Whitney was to change the industrial history of the 
world. For a few moments the miniature saws revolved 
without hindrance, and the separation of the seed from the 
cotton wool was successfully accomplished; but after a 
little the saws clogged with lint — the wheel stopped and 
poor Whitney was in despair. "Here 's what you need," 
exclaimed Mrs. Greene, and instantly seized a clothes- 
brush, and held it firmly to the teeth of the saws. " Madam," 
said Whitney, overcome with emotion and speaking with 
the exaggeration of gratitude, "you have perfected my 
invention ! ' ' 

On a secluded and sweet upland at the edge of a hillside 
wood lives the dear companion of all youth, and good 
Americans in particular — Ik Marvel. His "farm at Edge- 
wood" faces what appears to be a thick wood pierced by 
belfries, spires, and towers in high relief against purple 
hills; the picture's frame is composed of Mr. Mitchell's own 
beautiful shrubs and trees. 

Passing through the Dutch door into an hospitable hall, 
a familiar portrait of our host in his youth reflects the eternal 
charm of the pensive humor of the Reveries. To a querying 

i " Recollections of Washington and His Friends," as preserved in the 
family of General Nathanael Greene, by Martha Littlefield Phillips, Cen- 
tury Magazine, January, 1898. 



New Haven's Unique Possessions 145 

world, the Bachelor answers: "I should think there was as 
much truth in them as in most Reveries. ' ' One can but 
look at his library with emotion, and the room of ancestral 
portraits. From its window is a view of the Woodbridge 
hills, commemorating a family name, and who but a man 
with such a Scotch grandfather as Donald Grant could have 
spiced with a piquant savor that comparatively prosaic 
period of American Letters, — from the Mayflower to Rip 
Van Winkle, — "when the need to do things 
seemed so much larger than the need to write about 
them"! 

New Haven holds possessions unique in America: The 
Center Church on the Green, modelled after St. Martin's 
in-the-Fields with the Crypt; the Jarves and Trumbull 
Galleries of Yale, and Hillhouse Avenue. Sachem's Wood, 1 
high among the oaks, the stately home of the author of 
Percy's Masque, faces the avenue at one end, and the hand- 
some building of the New Haven Colony Historical Society 2 
the other. Hillhouse Avenue was private property until 
1862, and annually on some October night Mr. William 
Hillhouse and Mayor Skinner used to stretch the chain 
across the entrance. 

The silvery bell of Battell Chapel calls the study hours as 
you walk by the Sheffield Scientific School, past the Avenue's 
historic houses, to obtain a view from Sachem's Ridge and 
the Winchester Observatory. Conspicuous is the beautiful 

1 Senator James Hillhouse (father of the poet James A. Hillhouse), who 
planted these elms in 1792, was often called the " Sachem " because of his 
Indian complexion, and a joke of his Congressional confreres related to a 
hatchet he kept in his desk. His favorite toast was "Let us bury the 
hatchet. " The Hillhouse estate has recently become the property of 
Yale University, and a part of it will be devoted to the Yale Forestry 
School. Hillhouse Avenue, formerly Temple Avenue, from iSoq-iqoo, by 
Henrietta Silliman Dana, is an interesting sketch of its homesteads. 

2 The Historical Society building is a memorial gift of Henry F. English. 
Open to the public from 9 to 5. 



146 Old Paths of the New England Border 

tower of Christ Church, 1 a rare example of fourteenth- 
century Gothic, and soon will rise the new Library building 
of Yale. 

Most notable in the Yale Library is the Salisbury Col- 
lection of Oriental Languages and Literature. Professor 
Lanman alludes to Edward Elbridge Salisbury as the "life 
and soul " of the Oriental Society. He was the founder 
of the Oriental chair at Yale long filled by the eminent 
William Dwight Whitney. 

Men of Yale distinguished in letters and science are legion; 
Andrew White in his Autobiography says: "Yale had 
writers, strong, vigorous, and acute; of such were Woolsey, 
Porter, Bacon and Bushnell, some of whom, . . . had 
they devoted themselves to pure literature would have 
gained lasting fame." 

Of the collections in the Peabody Museum, 2 Huxley says 
that Professor Marsh's Extinct Mammals of North America 
are surpassed by no other collection in the world. Woolsey 
Hall contains the Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments. 

In the Yale Art School Building (the gift of Augustus 
Street), is the finest Gallery of early Italian Masters in the 
country. James Jackson Jarves was inspired in his se- 
lection of rare works adorning the Chapels of the Old World. 
It would be out of the question to gather together anything 

1 The architect of Christ Church was Henry Vaughn. The beautiful 
chancel window was designed by C. E. Kempe. 

2 Indispensable to the traveller is the Guide to Neiu Haven and Yale 
University, with maps, and including the old houses. As supplementary 
reading carry also the Historical Sketches of New Haven, by Ellen Strong 
Bartlett. Miss Bartlett's illustrations of the Trumbull Gallery and the 
Center Church are comprehensive, including even the Tablets to the 
Pastors, which are of unusual historic interest; to Nicholas Street, a 
graduate of Oxford University; to Chauncey Whittlesey, member of the 
Colonial Assembly, to James Dana and the rest. 

A Manual of the Geology of Connecticut with map has been compiled 
by William X. Rice, Ph. D., L.L.D. and Herbert E. Gregory, Ph. U. 




Washington. 

From a photograph by William Radford of an Engraving by Rembrandt 
Peale after his own Portrait of Washington. The artist made the Engraving, 
and then apparently added the leaves around it. The painting hangs in the 

Xational Capitol. 

147 



148 Old Paths of the New England Border 

approaching it now, beginning, as it does, with the first 
known Italian painter Giunta of Pisa, down through Veron- 
ese, Taddeo Gaddi and Spinello. The frames alone are a 
rich study. One spans ages of thought in stepping from 
the Jarves Gallery into the Trumbull Gallery, in which we 
meet face to face the men of Washington's day (Colonel 
Trumbull was very exact in his likenesses). One is an 
eye-witness of the events of the Revolution dramatically 
presented by the Aid-de-camp of General Washington; 
among patriots and heroes are Laurens, Knox, Rochambeau, 
Schuyler, Mifflin, Colonel Wadsworth and Governor Jona- 
than Trumbull, Jr., whose daughter Harriett married the 
celebrated Professor Silliman the elder; and surprisingly 
beautiful miniatures of charming women, belles of that 
day — the graceful Eleanor Custis, piquant Peggy Chew, 
and the Hartford beauty, Mary Seymour Chevenard. 

Trumbull's full-length portrait of Washington represents 
the Chief at the moment when resolved to retreat into the 
country from the banks of the frozen Delaware. (This 
portrait, originally painted for the city of Charleston in 
1792, was presented to Yale by Governor Trumbull, General 
Jedediah Huntington, the Honorables John Davenport, 
Benjamin Talmadge and Jeremiah Wadsworth.) Wash- 
ington writing to Francis Hopkinson on the subject of his 
sittings for an earlier portrait says: "It is a proof, among 
many others, of what habit and custom can effect. At first 
I was impatient at the request and as restive under the 
operation as a colt is of the saddle. The next time I sub- 
mitted very reluctantly, but with less flouncing. Now no 
dray moves more readily to the thill, than I to the painter's 
chair." Lossing. 

Washington visited New Haven in 1789, on his tour 
through New England. 

The city offered all hospitality and honor to the great 



Washington Visits New Haven 149 

Washington, recently inaugurated as head of the new 
republic. In scanning the pages of Washington's own 
account of his tour, one notes illustrious Connecticut names. 
It is a striking fact that at New Haven, the three chief 
magistrates who received President Washington were all 
Signers of the Declaration of Independence — Governor 
Samuel Huntington, Lieutenant-Governor Wolcott and the 
Mayor, Roger Sherman. 




- .-Ci."-^ I -- "= I 



Powder-horn decorated with a drawing of New Haven Green 
and a troop of horse, and inscribed, " Moldrum. In the 426 
Royal Highland Regiment, His Powder Horn made at Crown 
Point, November 17, 1759- In the Anson Phelps Stokes Col- 
lection of antiquities of New Haven. 



THE TOUR OF GENERAL WASHINGTON IN 17891 

[In part ; from New York to Springfield] 

" [New York] Thursday, October 1 jth, 17S0. 

" Commenced my Journey about 9 o'clock for Boston and 
a tour through the Eastern States. 

"The Chief Justice, Mr. Jay — and the Secretaries of the 
Treasury and War Departments accompanied me some 
distance out of the city. About 10 o'clock it began to 
Rain, and continued to do so till 1 1 , when we arrived at 
the house of one Hoyatt, who keeps a Tavern at Kings- 
bridge, where we, that is, Major Jackson, Mr. Lear and 
myself, with six servants, which composed my Retinue, 
dined. After dinner, through frequent light showers we 
proceeded to the Tavern of a Mrs. Haviland at Rye; who 
keeps a very neat and decent Inn. 

"The Road for the greater part, indeed the whole way, was 
very rough and stoney, but the Land strong, well covered 
with grass and luxuriant crop of Indian Corn intermixed 
with Pompions (which were yet ungathered) in the fields. 
We met four droves of Beef Cattle for the New York Market, 
(about 30 in a drove) some of which were very fine — also 
a flock of Sheep for the same place. AVe scarcely passed 
a farm house that did not abd. in Geese. 

" Their Cattle seemed to be of good quality, and their 
hogs large but rather long legged. 

" Friday 1 6th. 
. we breakfasted at Stamford, which is six miles 
further (at one Webb's). ... At Norwalk, which is 

1 Extracts from the Diary of Washington: From the first day of October, 
1789, to the tenth day of March, 1790. From the Original Manuscript 
now first printed. New York, 18^8. By permission of Estate of Janus 
F. Joy. 

150 




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15 2 Old Paths of the New England Border 

ten miles further we made a halt to feed our horses. To 
the lower end of this town Sea Vessels come. 

" From hence to Fairfield where we dined and lodged 
we found all the Farmers busily employed in 
gathering, grinding and expressing the Juice of their apples; 
The Destructive evidences of British cruelty are 
yet visible both in Norwalk and Fairfield; as there are the 
chimneys of many burnt houses standing in them yet. 
The principal export ... is Horses and Cattle — 
salted Beef and Pork — Lumber and Indian Corn to the 
West Indies." 

"Saturday iy. 

"A little after sunrise we left Fairfield, and passing through 
Et. Fairfield breakfasted at Stratford, ... a pretty 
village over near Stratford River. ... At this place 
I was received with an effort at Military Parade; and 
was attended to the Ferry ... by several Gentlemen 
on horseback. Doctor Johnson of the Senate, visited me 
here, being with Mrs. Johnson in this town (where he for- 
merly resided). The [Housatonic] Ferry is near half a mile; 
and sometimes incommoded by winds and cross tides. 
The navigation of vessels for about 75 tons extends up to 
Danby." 

"From the Ferry it is about 3 miles to Milford, 
In this place there is but one Church, or in other words, but 
one steeple — but there are Grist and Saw mills, and a 
handsome Cascade over the Tumbling dam. . . . From 
Milford we took the lower road through West Haven, . . 
and arrived at New Haven before two o'clock. 
By taking the lower Road we missed a Committee of the 
Assembly, who had been appointed to wait upon and escort 
me into town — to prepare an address — and to conduct me 
when I should leave the City as far as they should judge 
proper. The address was presented at 7 o'clock — and at 
nine I received another address from the Congregational 
Clergy of the place. ... I received the Compliment 
of a visit from Governor Mr. Huntington — The Lieutenant 



Washington's Diary 



!53 



Governor Mr. Wolcott and the Mayor, Mr. Roger Sherman." 
"The City of New Haven occupies a good deal of ground, 
but is thinly, though regularly laid out and built. The 
number of Souls in it are said to be about 4000. There 
is an Episcopal Church 3 Congregational Meeting Houses 
and a College, in which are at this time about 120 Students 
under Auspices of Doctor Styles [Ezra Stiles]. 




The first House built outside the Palisades, Milford, Conn. Residence 

of Mrs. Nathan G. Pond. Property of Charles W. Bcardsley. 

The Exports from this City are much the same as from 
Fairfield &c, and flax seed, (chiefly to New York)." 

''Sunday, 18th. 

"Went in the forenoon to the Episcopal Church, and in the 

afternoon to one of the Congregational Meeting-Houses. 

Attended to the first by the Speaker of the Assembly, Mr. 

Edwards, and a Mr. Ingersoll, and to the latter by the 



154 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, The Mayor and 
Speaker." 

" These Gentlemen all dined with me (by invitation), as 
did Genl. Huntington, at the house of Air. Brown, where I 
lodged, and who keeps a good Tavern. Drank Tea at 




From the Connecticut River Wethersfield is a view of delight ; her Cliris- 
topher Wren spire nestles among the trees, and white stones of the old bury- 
ing ground, like a flock of sheep on the hillside, appear quite English and 
pastoral. 

the Mayor's (Mr. Sherman.) Upon further inquiry I find 
that there has been about . . . yards of coarse Linen 
manufactured at this place since it was established — and 
that a Glass work is on foot here for the manufacture of 
Bottles. At 7 o'clock in the evening many Officers of this 



Washington at Wallingford 



i55 



State, belonging to the late Continental army, called to pay 
their respects to me. By some of them it was said that the 
people of this State could, with more ease pay an additional 
100,000^ tax this year than what was laid last year," 

"'Monday igth. 

"Left New Haven at 6 o'clock and arrived at Wallingford 

(13 miles) by half after eight o'clock, when we breakfasted, 

and took a walk through the town. ... At this place 

(Wallingford) we see the white Mulberry growing, raised 




The old Home of the Hon. John Webster, Fifth Governor of Connecticut, 

Hartford. 

from the seed, to feed the Silkworm. We also saw samples 
of lustring (exceeding good) which had been manufactured 
from the Cocoon raised in this Town, and silk thread very 
fine. This except the weaving, is the work of private 
families, . . . and is likely to turn out a beneficial 
amusement. . . . We arrived at Middletown, on Con- 
necticut River, being met two or three miles from it by the 
respectable Citizens. ... I took a walk round the 



15 6 Old Paths of the New England Border 




Chief-Justice Ellsworth Mansion, Windsor, Connecticut. 
Life-size Portrait of Chief-Justice Ellsworth and Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth. 

Town, from the heights of which the prospect is beautiful. 
Belonging to this place, I was informed (by a Genl. Sage) 
that there were about 20 sea vessels. 

"Having dined, . . . passing through a Parish of 
Middletown and Weathersfield, we arrived at Hartford 
about sundown. At Weathersfield we were met by a party 
of the Hartford light horse, and a number of Gentlemen 
from the same place with Colonel Wadsworth, at their head, 
and escorted to Bub's Tavern, where we lodged." 

" Tuesday 20th. 

"After breakfast, accompanied by Colonel Wadsworth, 
Mr. Ellsworth and Colonel Jesse Root, I viewed the woollen 
Manufactory at this place, which seems to be going on with 
spirit. Their Broadcloths are not of the first quality, as 



Washington at Springfield 157 

yet, but they are good; as are their Coatings, Cassimeres, 
Serges and Everlastings; of the first, that is, broad-cloth, 
I ordered a suit to be sent to me at New York — and of the 
latter a whole piece, to make breeches for my servants. . . . 

"Dined and drank tea at Colonel Wadsworth's and about 
7 o'clock received from, and answered an Address of, the 
Town of Hartford." 

"Wednesday, 21st. 

"By promise I was to have Breakfasted at Mr. Ellsworth's 
at Windsor, on my way to Springfield, but the morning 
proving very wet, and the rain not ceasing till past 10 
o'clock, I did not set out till half after that hour; I called, 
however, on Air. Ellsworth and stayed there near an hour — 
reaching Springfield by 4 o'clock, . . . examined the 
Continental Stores at this place, which I found in very good 
order. ... A Col. Worthington, Col. Williams, Adjutant 
General of the State of Massachusetts, Gen. Shepherd, Mr. 
Lyman, and many other Gentlemen sat an hour or two with 
me at Parson's Tavern . . . which is a gfood house. " 




( 'harter Oak Chair. 
Senate Chamber, Hartford. 



DEERFIELD (POCUMTUCK), 1670 

"... in the broad interval 
Through -which at will our Indian rivulet 
Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw, 
Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough unburies, 
Here in pine houses, built of new-fallen trees, 
Supplantcrs of the tribe the farmers dwell. " 

Emerson. 

" It is agreed that an Artiste be procured upon as moderate terms as 
may be that may lay out the Lotts at Pawcomptuck to each proprietor 
according to their Lawefull interest. " — Resolved at Dedham Town Meeting. 

On a terraced plateau of a valley within a valley were 
builded the homes of Deerfield. The Pocumtuck tribe 
once swarmed this vale, council seat of the Connecticut 
River Confederacy: these with their allies defied Uncas 
and the Mohegans in the Thames Valley: but the power 
of the belligerent Pocumtucks was finally broken by their 
recent comrades in arms, the fierv Mohawks, whose wigwams 
lay distant two suns beyond Hoosac on the hither side of 
Beverwyck (Albany). 1 

If you will but climb to the north of Fort Pocumptuck — 
from which the tribe was dislodged and annihilated in 
North Meadows by the Mohawks in revenge for the murder 
of their ambassador, Prince Saheda, — past Sachem's Head 
and P>ear's Den to the Poet's Seat, you find yourself high 
above the gorge where Pocumtuck stream — our Deerfield 
River — turns abruptly and enters the Connecticut, by 
piercing Pemawachuatuck, the Twisted Mountain: it severs 
the Great Beaver's tail, driving royally through a craggy 



'The first large Dutch settlement on the site of Albany, rich in beaver 
was named after Beaverwyk or Beaverville of the Fatherland. The 
beaver no longer build dams in Holland. 

i<;8 



Deerfield — From the Poet's Seat 159 

gate feathered by mountain pine. Here you may feast 
on the mellow landscape of both lesser and greater valleys. 

FROM THE POET'S SEAT 

See, below the historic Albany ford, how — between 
fields of tasselled corn — the slender Deerfield bends en- 
treatingly toward the rugged and sometime menacing 
foot-hills of Hoosac, where is the boiling spring, its well- 
head ; -while the superb Quonetacut (home of the Sococquis, 
as Count Frontenac called the river Indians) runs smiling 
the entire length of old Deerfield township, 1 some twentv- 
five miles, and on and on, broadening as it runs between 
the blooming tobacco fields toward the cherished patent of 
Lords Say and Sele and Brooke, at last to lose itself in 
Adrian Block's "Great Bay." 

Look over the blue hills and far away to the north: the 
Seigneurs' territory of New France is intrenched behind a 
hundred leagues of waving tree-tops almost unbroken except 
by Le Merde Iroquois (Lake Champlain) with its ominous 
Point a la Chevelure or Scalp Rock (Crown Point). For a 
century, savage war-parties glided out of the glorious St. 
Lawrence down the Sorel or Richelieu River, across Lake 
Champlain, over the Winooski, and into the Connecticut 
to attack the Massachusetts Reach. 

Again from your Poet's eyrie you can discern but one 
white man's road, through which aid might come to the 
border during King Philip's War, that is, the Old Bay Path, 
trodden out by Thomas Hooker and by Pynchon on his 
way to the Boston Council from Springfield, and later by 
troops from the Bay who marched double-quick to the 
rescue of Ouaboag, Aggawam, Nonotuck, Squakeag, and 
Norwothuck. The word frontier is a synonym for peril, 
which in our Colonies appeared as a living Red Peril. 

'Brookfield, Springfield, Northampton, Northfield, and Hadley. 



i6o 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



How daring a deed to set one's hearthstone 1 on the North- 
west frontier at the extreme outpost of Deerfield ! 2 It was 
to fly English colors in a hollow square composed of wild 




The Samson Frary house on home-lot of i6qS, residence of Miss C. Alice 
Baker. Section added in 1748 for Town Hall with high carved cornices. 
The kitchen has a huge summer-beam. Key-stone of fire-place arch is a 
double-sized brick. Benedict Arnold stopped here, when a tavern, to pro- 
en re beef for his troops. Oldest house in Connecticut valley. 



1 Deerfield's hearthstones nearly all came from "Hearthstone brook."' 
not far from Cheapside bridge. 

2 Early Deerfield included Greenfield, Gill, Conway, and Shelburne, 
averaging 9 miles in width below the great bend at Peskeompskut (Tur- 
ner's Falls); it was bounded by present Xorthfield, Bernardston, Leyden. 
and Colrain on the north; by Montague, Whateley, and Williamsburg 
south; Connecticut River separated it from Sunderland, Montague, Ewing, 
and Xorthfield; west are Claremont, Buckland, Goshen, and Ashfield, 
where George William Curtis and Charles Eliot Norton held feasts of 



Pocumtuck's Rich Meadows 161 

forests and savages. Yet, Pocumtuck's stream overflowing 
Deerfield's verdant plain, sheltered by the Great Beaver, 
was to the Colonist as another Jordan in a new Land of 
Promise. 

At least so thought Deerfield's pioneer, Samuel Hinsdell 
of Hadley, whose rude plough — impatient — disturbed the 
placid green level of a breadth and beauty truly remarkable. 
Hinsdell had "made Emproument" of several acres, 
before Lieutenant Joshua Fisher and Timothy Dwight 
arrived to gauge the famous "8000 acre grant" of western 
land with which the Colonial Council had reimbursed 
Dedham; a generous slice, for leading men grumbled audibly 
at yielding up their superior Naticke meadows to Eliot's 
Praying Indians. 

Lieutenant Fisher had passed by the "Chestnut country" 
(now the beautiful town of Lancaster) because too many 
farms bad been pre-empted; riding on over the Bay Path, 
the ambassadors had mounted the Connecticut ten miles 
above Hadley to these rich Pocumtuck meadows celebrated 
. throughout the Province, because Major John Mason, 1 by 
purchasing the corn-crop of 1638, and persuading the 
Pocumtucks to paddle forty canoe-loads to Hartford, 
saved Connecticut from starvation. 

The Dedham men reported few Indians and fair grazing 
on the hillsides " Easterlie and Westerlie"; also that the 



reason. At Leyden Hills, Henry Kirke Browne the sculptor was born, 
also in the vicinity, Chester Harding, William M. Hunt, and Larkin 
G. Mead. 

1 This was a unique affair altogether, for never before in the history 
of conquest did a victorious General beg food from the brothers of the 
vanquished; and these, Major Mason, Mr. William Wadsworth, and 
Deacon Stebbins, who ascended Connecticut Valley one hundred miles 
to buy corn, were the first Europeans to enter Deerfield Valley. 



l62 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



LANDMARKS : Arms Corner house- 
lot (1698), south end of Deerfield 
Street. Tablet. West Lots. Chris- 
topher Stebbins house (1712), home 
and studio of Augustus Vincent 
Tack. Col. John Hawks-Hoyt house 
(1810). Barnard house, residence 
Henry Chiids. Childs-Russell 

Williams house, residence Mrs. 
Elizabeth Williams Champney, stu- 
dio of the late J. Wells Champney. 
Squire John Williams house. Birth- 
place of Bishop Williams. Mehuman 
Hinsdale house ( 1760), residence of 
the Misses Whiting. Ephraim 
Williams house, residence of William 
Williams. The Old Albany Road. 
Dickinson Academy. Benoni Steb- 
bins lot. Site of Old Indian House 
or Hoyt Tavern. Tablet. Now home 
of Mrs. L. B. Wells. The First 
Church (1824), fifth building on 
site. Joseph Stebbins house (1768), 
Captain of Company in 7th Regi- 
ment under Colonel Brewer, fought 
at Bunker Hill. Commission signed 
by John Hancock. Residence 
Hon. George Sheldon. Williams 
house (1750), remodelled, residence 
Miss Louise Billings. Jones home- 
stead (1750). John Sheldon home- 
stead (1708). Broughton lot ran 
west to Broughton's Pond; Brough- 
ton family massacred, 1693. East 
Lots, North End. Stebbins home- 
stead. Ebenezer Hinsdale house (old 
house in 1750). residence Mrs. E. C. 
Cowles. Allen house. Site Colonel 
David Field house and store (1754- 
85), engaged in fur trade with the 
Mohawks, and was Chairman of 
Committee of Correspondence and 
Safety, Delegate to Constitutional 



meadow land of Pocumtuck hath 
a flavor akin to our beloved 
home-lots circled by the alluvial 
Charles, despite one striking differ- 
ence, Pocumtuck is close-hipped 
by a curling, zigzag ridge. That 
east ridge of danger to old- 
timers! Why was the settler 
blind! Could he not see how 
these very hills of enchantment 
were eyries for the savage and 
his hill-locked home an easy prey? 
Of what use his turreted green- 
log fort and twenty leafy look- 
outs above? In open season, from 
the budding of the creeping azalea 
to the fall of the mahogany 
shield of the oak, some pair of 
tree-hidden eyes — never weary- 
ing — watched the farmer's goings 
and comings with plough, sickle,, 
or to mill 1 ; not even a chicken 
strayed outside the stockade un- 
marked by an arrow. 

Nevertheless, each proprietor 
only saw in anticipation his luxu- 
rious crops bending under the 



1 One brilliant summer day, 1605, a party of villagers rode to mill 
through South Meadows with bags of grain thrown across their horses 
(Joseph Barnard, first town clerk, Godfrey Nims, first constable escaped 
from the famous "Falls Fight," Henry White and Philip Mattoon). 
Deep in town affairs, unnoticed was the whirr of the meadow lark, the 
scarlet wing of the blackbird, or the song-sparrow, "All is vanity — 
vanity — vanity." Suddenly from an alder ambush sprang Indians and 
Barnard was fatally wounded at "Indian Bridge." Tablet. 



Legend of the Great Beaver 



l6 3 



Convention. David Sheldon house, 
residence Mrs. Samuel Childs. 
The Manse or Willard house. 
Orthodox Parsonage on site of 
Deacon Thomas French house 
(i7°3); previously lot of Quentin 
Stockwell (1673) where Mr. Mather, 
the first minister, boarded. Samson 
Frary house on home lot of 1698, 
residence of Miss C. Alice Baker. 
The Godfrey Nims lot, Home 
of the Deerfield Society, residence 
of the Misses Miller. Lane to 
Memorial Hall (1799) containing 
Museum. Orlando Ware house. 
Site Catlin homestead, 1778-1874. 
The Catlins established a rope- 
walk and made pewter buttons. 
Barnard House. Arms Corner. 
Stillwater Gorge. In 1746, after 
surrender of Fort Massachusetts 
to Gov. Vaudreuil, Indians crossed 
Hoosac Mountain by the Indian 
path and waited in hiding behind 
some haystacks in Stebbins Meadow 
near the beautiful Stillwater Gorge. 

References: Sheldon's "Deerfield." 
"True Stories of New England Cap- 
tives" by C. Alice Baker. Sketch 
of George Fuller in "Six Portraits" by 
Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 
"George Fuller, His Life and Works." 
Sketches by W. D. Howells and 
others. 

Events in Deerfield, according 
to early history: First grant, 1669; 
began to settle at Pocumtuck, 1671; 
Captain Lothrop's defeat, 1675; 
began to re-settle, driven off, 1677; 
commenced settling second time, 
1682; settled a minister (Mr. 
Williams), 1686; town destroyed 
second time, 1704; number of 
inhabitants, 280; killed at the 
sack, 47; taken prisoners, 122; 
slain on the way to Canada, 19; 
never returned, 28; redeemed from 
the enemy, 62. 

Agassiz says that the 



western breeze from the Sunsick 
Hills, little dreaming that Deer- 
field's rich harvest of five years 
hence was inadvertently to be- 
come a primal cause in precipi- 
tating the blackest day New 
England had as yet seen — that 
September tragedy when Muddy 
Brook changed its color and 
name. It is Bloody Brook to 
this day. 

The Indian title was purchased 
of the Sachem Chaud 1 through 
the good offices of the great man 
of the Middle Connecticut Valley 
— Worshipful John Pynchon of 
Springfield ■ — soldier, diplomat, 
and fur-trader. 

The old squaw Mashilisk, 
mother of Wattewwaluncksin, 
marked Deerfield 's south bound 
"To ye Lower Point of ye hill 
called Wequamps and by ye 
English Sugar loafe Hill"; 
Mashilisk's Wequamps (the pic- 
turesque southern knob of 
Pocumtucke Range, an especial 
glory of Hatfield towering sheer 
above pretty Sunderland Ferrv) 
is of high prehistoric dignity; 
Connecticut River once occupied 



] Chaud reserved "Liberty of fishing for ye Indians in ye Rivers or 
waters and free Liberty to hunt Deere or other Wild creatures and to 
gather Walnuts, Chestnuts and other nuts things etc. on ye commons." 



1 64 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Deerfield Plain and swept forcefully around Sugar Loaf, evi- 
dence of its seething tracks being a huge "pot-hole" on the 
craggy slope. The valley legend of the Great Beaver (East 
Mountain) as related by a Pocumtuck Indian tallies with 
the conclusion of Agassiz. This fragment has come down 
to us: 

" Many, many suns in the past, ere the wigwams of our 
tribe stood here, a great lake rippled wide and long across 
the land. In its waters a giant beaver sported, and rav- 
aged all the countryside. Mighty Hobomok, wroth, vowed 
that the wicked one should die. With an oak cudgel he 
struck across the beaver's neck — just there, Netop [pale 
face], in the hollow between head and shoulders. The fear- 
ful creature sank gasping to the bed of the lake and his 
carcass turned to stone." 

The back of the petrified beaver ! rises to a dizzy shelf, 
Pocumtuck Rock — "the East Eye"; another vigilant 
sentinel watching over Old Street is Arthur's Seat, "the 
West Eye," 1000 feet above tidewater, near Shelburne 
line in the Sunsick Hills. 

The traveller of steady head will delight to stand on 
Pocumtuck Rock sheer above Eagle Brook Plain, Wisdom 
and the Old World and the Mill, and sweep his field-glasses 
up Old Street and North Meadows of pathetic history to- 
ward Cheapside, Country Farms, and hidden Greenfield, 
besides Turnip Yard at the final slope of Great Beaver's 
back; south, below Wapping or Plumbtree Playne (whence 
the captive Hursts were carried to Sault au Recollet) , far 

'The geology of this region is interesting. A rare collection of the 
curii >us blue " claystones " found largely on the left bank of the Connecticut 
at low water has been made by the scientist, Mrs. Jennie Anns Sheldon 
and illustrated in her volume, Concretions from the Champlain Clays of 
the Connecticut Valley. The iiora hereabouts is included in Wild Flowers 
of the Northeastern States by Ellen Miller and Margaret C. Whiting of 
Deerfield. 






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166 Old Paths of the New England Border 

out beyond the Bars, Indian Hole, Squaw Hole, Bars Long 
Hill, the Grindstone, and Sugar Loaf, spread out in Nono- 
tuek Valley the meadows of Old Hatfield and older Hadley; 
finally the brother peaks Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke 
stop the way, picturesque guardians of " Long tidal River," 
Quinetahacut. 

DEERFIELD TOWN PLOTT 

The Artiste divided Deerfield Town Plott into long, 
narrow strips, the southerly end of it being "att a little 
brook called Eagle Brook," extending to the falling ridge 
of land at Samson Frary's cellar on the north; each planter 
was obliged to set a stake "with the two first letters of his 
name, fairly written"; if found wanting, he was fined 12J. 
The Worshipful John Pynchon bought out the Rev. John 
Allyn of Dedham, thus owning the largest strip — 54 cow 
commons and 4 sheep commons (5 sheep or goat commons 
being equal to 1 cow common). 1 

Four years passed of peaceful tilling and gatheiing of 
harvests, then a runner left direful news at farmhouse doors 
— that King Philip had at last yielded permission to his 
young braves to begin depredations in the village of Swanzey 
while the householders were sitting under the famous Welsh 
preacher, Pastor Myles, in ye little Baptist Church at New 
Meadow Neck. Worse yet, Nipmucks — -after having am- 
bushed in a narrow defile the peace ambassador sent by the 
Colonial Council, Captain Edward Hutchinson — had at- 
tacked Quabaug (Brookneld) with fire-arrows; the "treach- 
erous heathen" — as Captain Thomas Wheeler calls the 
Nipmucks in his extraordinary True Narrative — "bound their 



'The Dedham men largely sold their rights; Serg Fuller owned 20 cow 
commons; Isaac Bullard 11; Rob't Ware and Nathaniel Fisher 15; Joh. 
Bacon 7; Jnh. ffarington 18 and 2 sheep commons, etc. Governor Lev- 
erett sold his for £6 current money and several barrels of tar. 



Peace and King Philip's War 167 

arrows with cotton rags and brimstone, lighted them and 
shot at our roof" ; then, " those cruel, blood-thirsty heathen " 
rammed against the house a fire- wagon, devised by a pair 
of cart-wheels piled high with flax, hay, and candle-wood. 
The beseiged — some twenty men, fifty women and children 
— raised a few logs for a rampart and were holding feather 
beds against the windows; a holocaust was imminent when 
Major Willard's company appeared. 

The Indian fighter, Captain Mason, Captain Richard 
Beers, and Lieutenant Thomas Cooper with dragoons and 
Indian allies arrived to aid terrorized Middle Connecticut 
Valley. 

A critical moment! Should Mohawks choose to unite 
with the eastern tribes all those villages lying between the 
trading-post Warranock or Westfield (the jealous rival 
of Springfield in fur barter) and feeble Squakheag or North- 
field, a veritable hot-bed of Indians, repeatedly deserted and 
repeatedly garrisoned — in 1688 by Sergt. Bigelow and 
Capt. Jonathan Bull of Hartford, sent by Gov. Andros, — 
would without doubt be caught in the vortex of massa- 
cre; especially Deerfield, so daringly planted on the canoe 
path of the Long River. No "darsnt's" appear in their 
vocabulary. 

Moreover Red-skin allies were oft-times like snakes in 
the grass. Attawamhood declared that the Indians made 
"fools of the English," signalling their approach to the 
enemy by bird calls. Game was plenty hereabouts in 
season, but it was often starvation on long scouts to our 
regulars trained to a full knapsack; they were not able 
like the Kentucky Rangers or coureur de bo is, to march on 
a handful of parched corn, or like Indians to enjoy ground 
nuts and boiled moccasin. An English commander, in the 
Old French War, on a far western trail beyond Albany, in 
lieu of starvation accepted Indians' pot-luck and was 



i68 Old Paths cf the New England Border 

horrified to see a human hand ladled out — "his hosts were 
breakfasting on a dead Frenchman. " 

French battalions were often in trouble because they 
scorned to lay aside in the wilderness the rich foppery and 
courtly magnificence of the Old Regime. Yet the French 
were apt in cementing friendship with the savage. E\"en 
the splendid Count Frontenac, who commanded his army 
from a litter in old age, stooped to gambol in their wild 
dances to show his good fellowship. 

"Crowned Quebec on her Citadel 
Fierce wild tales of her youth can tell. 

The young sweet land of La Nouvelle France 
Has its share of Old World romance: 
But sobered by time are sword and gown, " 

The Old Regime, "Seranus." 

THE FLOWER OF ESSEX 

" The fields shall grow yellow with ripened ears, and the red 
grape shall hang upon wild brambles." — Virgil. Eel., iv. 

The larder at the seat of war stands empty. Commander- 
in-chief Pynchon answers the starvation question by orders 
that his wheat at Deerfield be threshed — upw r ards of three 
thousand bushels, — and detached Captain Lothrop of the 
Bay to convey the provender to Hadley; "seventeen of ye 
principal inhabitants of Deerfield" volunteered as team- 
sters. Escorted by the very flower of Essex, the wheat 
wagons rumbled out of the village over the old Hadley 
road across South Meadows and Bars Long Hill A crisp 
September air dispersed all megrims of lurking danger and 
the merry little procession crossed Eagle Brook — yonder 
stream of golden shallows and playful cascades, child of 
Pemmawachuatuck's cooling: height — and let down the 






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i7° Old Paths of the New England Border 

Bars. 1 (Now the Bars district is written clown as of a bitter 
and sweet history, first as a field for scalping-parties. and of 
late the scene of Genius's peaceful victories in color — the 
almost unrivalled color and American charm of George 
Fuller.) Another half -hour and the road led the commissary 
relief-party through a bog, fringed with wild grape tangles 
and scarlet dogwood — just such grape vines as delighted 
the Norsemen. Guns were carelessly left on the grain-bags 
whilst heedless yeomen jumped down to supplement the 
hasty sunrise breakfast with at least one luscious cluster — 
"which proved dear and dead grapes to them, " says Cotton 
Mather. In a twinkling out of the innocent marsh rose a 
shower of poisoned arrows and the harsh, distracting war- 
whoop, close-pressed by tomahawks and scalping-knife 
of eagle-plumed warriors, whose tawny backs had been 
indistinguishable from the mire. Captain Mosely rushed 
in too late. Of the valiant husbandmen only John Steb- 
bins 2 escaped, and all New England mourned with Deer- 

1 The Bars Gate was closed each day in the tall to fence the cattle so 
they might feed in the valley until snow-time, after coming down from 
the summer hill pastures, where the stock was allowed to run at large. 

At all roads, gates had been set up except that leading from Hatfield 
into South Meadows, where there were a set of bars; thi6 Deerfield district 
was the scene of the Bars Fight. 

Here Edward Allen and his wife were killed by Indians; Samuel Allen 
also on the meadows north of the Burk homestead, "while valiantly 
defending his children." Eunice was tomahawked but recovered; the 
boy Samuel was taken but rescued because of the gratitude of a squaw. 
These were oral historians of fearful events. The Allen homestead became 
the studio of George Fuller, who was born in the Locke house opposite, 
now the home of George Spencer Fuller, Esq. Enneking says: "Many 
Americans beside Whistler rank high as simon-pure impressionists; among 
them George Fuller takes the highest rank. " 

First gate-keepers: Eleazer Hawks had charge of the Bars, John 
Broughton of the north gate, Samuel Northam the middle gate, Jonathan 
Wells at Eagle Brook, Ephraim Beers at Wapping. 

2 John Stebbins, the onlv man known to come out whole from the 
massacre, was grandson of Rowland Stebbins, the family's founder in 




Photograph by Frances and Mary Allen. 

The Old South Door 

Of ye NintS homestead, through which Revolutionary volunteers Went out 
to war. De Rouville's Indian allies tragically burned the first house 
on this lot, that of Godfrey Nims, cordivainer, and "captivated" 
Mistress Mehitable Nims and little Abigail; now the home of the 
"Blue and White" Society, residence of the Misses Miller. 



Deerfield Old Street 17 1 

field, for were not "six and twenty children made orphans 
all in one little Plantation? " — moreover, brave Captain 
Lothrop and his " choice company of young men none of 
whom were ashamed to speak to the enemy within the 
gate" lay slain. 

The Bloody Brook still ripples by the black mountainside. " 1 

(From Sugar Loaf's rock chair above, tradition says that 
King Philip watched the fray, as he actually did watch the 
burning of Seekonk seated in a great arm-chair. 2 ) To 
Moseley's aid came Major Treat, being out on a north scout; 
the Indians retreated, crossing the river at the glorious 
gorge of Stillwater shouting: "Come, Moseley! Come! 
you seek Indians, you want Indians, here 's Indians enough 
for you!" 

They stopped only to wave the garments of the English 
before the families of their victims in Deerfield fort : Captain 
Appleton sounded the trumpet, and the miscreants disap- 
peared up the trail through Wisdom and Greenfield at the 
right of the present Eunice Williams monument. 

DEERFIELD OLD STREET 

Sauntering along witching Deerfield Old Street and up 
the slight rise of Meeting-House Hill, you read beneath 
each gable and lean-to, and carved door flecked with elm 



America. Lothrop lost men from Lynn, Romney, Cambridge, "Ould 
Newbury"; John Parke of Watertown received a pension, £2. 10s., for 
a wound in the elbow. 

1 The ballad of Bloody Brook was read by the author, Edward Everett 
Hale, at the anniversary of 1888. Previously Edward Everett, "oar 
first citizen " as Dr. Holmes called him, delivered one of his incompa- 
rable orations at Bloody Brook, and is by interesting coincidence de- 
scended from a settler of Dedham — Richard Everard. 

2 King Philip's arm-chair is preserved by the Antiquarian Society of 
Rehoboth. See Old Paths and Legend.', of New England. Vol. I., chapter 
on Rehoboth; also Swansea, for the opening of King Philip's War, and 
Dedham. 



i/2 Old Paths of the New England Border 

shadows, tales of strange captures and stranger escapes by 
the old men, sturdy youths, and winsome maids of border 
days; for eighty-nine years of long winter evenings house- 
mothers shuddered at the shrieking blast lest it smother 
a war-whoop, and called to "father" to draw the shutter 
bars. Yet, when one family was devoured by Indians, an- 
other, by sheer pluck, built a house on the ashes of the first. 

Two child neighbors were carried into captivity, to meet 
later as strangers, fall in love, and marry at Sault au Recollet 
fort; one little Abigail, daughter of Godfrey Nims, baptized 
into the Catholic faith and called To-wat-a-go-nach by the 
squaw Ganastarsi with whom she lived; the other, her 
sweetheart, Josiah Rising, was carried from the house of 
Mehuman Hinsdell, "twice captured by Indian Salvages," 
known to-day as "Tne Harrow" of the Blue and White 
group, standing south of Dickinson Academy; the latter 
is built on the site of Parson Williams's parsonage, burned 
at "The Sack," which stood hard by ye Old Indian house, 
whose ponderous, battered oak door with tomahawked hole 
— through which Mistress Ensign Sheldon was shot in her 
chamber — is conspicuous in the Deernekl collection at Memo- 
rial Hall (having been saved by Dr. Slade 1 of Chestnut Hill). 

Pathetic there is the am irn, wee shoe of the little captive, 
Sally Coleman, four years old, one of the spoils of Ashpe- 
lon's raid, and in the first party led to Canada. Sally dropped 
its mate in a brook during the long journey. By unrest- 
ing demands, Benjamin Waite and Stephen Jennings had 

'Visitors and historians are immeasurably indebted to the zeal of the 
Honorable George Sheldon in making accessible here at Memorial Halt 
a remarkable objective history of Deerfield and Pocumtuck Valley. Mr. 
Sheldon's History is a monument to Colonial heroes, many of whom would 
otherwise have been lost in obscurity. Air. Sheldon has also published 
77/,' Journal of Captain Nathaniel Dwight; The Little Brown House on the 
Albany Road; The Flintlock Used in King Philip's liar and other 
monographs of Deerfield. 



Child Captives 173 

ransomed their families and the little girl travelled home to 
Hatfield by Lake Champlain, Lake Saint Sacrement (Lake 
George), and the Albany Road, but not before seeing Ser- 
geant Jonathan Plympton, who had fought stoutly with 
Moseley's troop, led unmoved to the stake by his friend 
Obadiah Dickinson. This tiny, battered shoe is expressive 
of unwritten pioneer martyrdoms, and is as precious t<> pa- 
riots, as was to pilgrim of scrip and staff, the finger encased 
in silver of the greatest of the seven thousand virgins in 
the beautiful Church of St. Ursula. 

Quentin Stoekwell savs in his dramatic relation that it 
was through Chief Ashpelon's intervention that all were 
not tortured or burned. 

"We were like to starve. All the Indians went a Hunting 
but could get nothing: Powwow'd and got nothing, then 
they desired to see what the Englishman's God could do. 
I prayed, so did Sergeant Plympton. . . . The Indians 
reverently attended Morning and Night: next day they 
got Bears. " One bear's foot served five captives for twenty- 
four hours. 

Count Frontenac benevolently sent four Gentlemen of 
his Household and a guard to escort the captives across the 
border. Benj. Waite writes from Albany to Hatfield to 
hasten aid: "Stay not for the Sabbath, nor for the shoeing 
of horses. We sJia!l endeavor to meet you at Canterhook 
[Kinderhook], it may be at Housatouuek [Great Barringtori]- 
We must come very softly because of our wives and children. " 

That was a triumphant and pathetic procession welcomed 
in broad Hatfield Street led by the rescuers carrying each a 
babe, born in bondage — Captivity Jennings and Canada 
Waite. Some were much altered by hardships : one mother 
did not recognize her own boy, so she sang the child's fa- 
vorite hymn, and he ran into her arms. 

Old Street's mellow serenity this leafy month is intensi- 
fied by contrast to "Injun days." On both sides of the 



i/4 Old Paths of the New England Border 

road, hiding among huge elm roots which break the sod, 
the dandelion doubles its yellow crest and long-stemmed 
purple violets open wide eyes at a stranger's intrusion thus 
early in summer. A whiff of rich fragrance from the 
haughty Persian lilac in a front door-yard brings back 
February days in tropical New Orleans where you discern 
an unaccountable delicate odor, long ere you arrive at the 
source of the sweetness — the rose-trimmed arch gate or 
the sweet-scented olive tree a block away. There at your 
left, on the old Sheldon place, half-way between the church 
and North Meadows, is an apple-tree bank. The pink and 
white blossoms have but recently fallen on the tribe's 
sepulchre here overlooking the river. How marked is the 
savage understanding of the beautiful ! That which Thoreau 
says of Old Bedford of Middlesex, is true of this Deerfield 
bluff: " The laud still bears the scar here, and time is slowly 
crumbling the bones of a race. Yet without fail every spring 
since they first fished and hunted here, the brown thrasher has 
heralded the morning from a birch or alder spray, and the 
undying race of reed-birds still rustle through the withering 
grass. But these bones rustle not. 1 " 

You delight in the springy earth path running straight 
to its close in a triple row of maples on the North Terrace 
and seat yourself under a leafy green umbrella facing the 
Leyden Hills, North Meadows in the interval between. 

The country path compels re\ r erie, just as gray asphalt 
and red brick incite that peculiar exhilaration of great 
human marts where mind flashes electric and creative 
under counter-currents; but once irresistible Spring enters 
the City she turns hurrying feet toward the calm hills 
against the blue. 

The hush of the mowing-land is broken by an ox-cart's 
creaking as it trundles along against the dark low back- 



j/6 Old Paths of the New England Border 

ground of Pine Hill. The farm-boys cool off under the 
nooning oak, "the Dinner Tree," so-called by Deerfield 
school children as far back as Revolutionary Davs. A 
bird of velvety coal-black wings and white breast sets his 
tall reed swinging next a burdock by the brook and whistles 
softly in free, careless joy, for are we not both guests of 
Lowell's "frank-hearted hostess "- —June, "whose roof is 
every spreading tree"! 

".4 week ago the sparrow ivas divine; 
The bluebird, shifting his light load of song 
From post to post along the cheerless fence, 
Was as a rhymer ere tlie poet come; 
But now, oh rapture! sunshine winged and voiced 

Gladness of woods, skies, waters, all in one 
The bobolink has come. . . ." 1 

Tragedy holds you on the green bank all the long after- 
noon; you count certain treacherous footsteps creeping 
with cruel intent toward village stockade; again, footsteps 
retreating, as one train after another of lagging captives 
cross Deerfield North Meadows, at this moment surpass- 
ingly beautiful in two-mile reach flecked with flowers. No 
fence of the owners interrupts the shaded sea of color, only 
Plain Swamp Brook sweeping toward Cheapside, the pretty 
hillside village, formerly Green River and an important 
post at the head of Connecticut River navigation, now 
possessed of seven bridges across her three rivers. 

Looking backward many suns into a half-legendary 
mirror, the beat of tom-toms mingles with cries of aboriginal 
battk\ as Mohawk drives Pocumtuck out of his Fort Hill 
stronghold and slaughters him in his corn-field. Pine 
I Mil's skirts were again and aeain smirched with red during 



1 Under the Willows, James Russell Lowell. 



Deerfield North Meadows 177 

\.nglo-Saxon possession, yet she lifts her rounded green 
tead serenely oblivious to world tumult. Under King 
milip's sceptre Pine Hill saw the spoilers of Bloody Brook 
ly past under swamp and sugar maple of flaming red and 
;old, and at the opening of Queen Anne's War witnessed the 
.pproach of Sieur Hertel de Rouville and his four handsome 
>rothers with a band of Caughnawagas and Abenakis. 

The exceeding great ambition of his Majesty Louis XIV., 
punished in the War of the Spanish Succession, was the indi- 
rect cause of the flood which overwhelmed a few inoffen- 
sive villagers in the Massachusetts Province of Queen Anne, 
Deerfield's disaster being but the tail-end of a tidal wave 
of European discord. The policy of "Good Queen Anne" 
lay less in war than in distributing her famous "Bounty," 
of which our colonial churches possess tokens, and in stimu- 
lating Pope, Swift, and other wits of the Augustan age, who 
assembled at Wills' Coffee-house in Covent-Garden ; yet 
through her romantic fondness for a lady of her bedchamber 
— the strong-minded Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough — 
Anne, last of the Stuart dynasty, was persuaded to declare 
war against France. 

Responsively, in New France Governor Vaudreuil began 
depredations at "Guerrefille," glad of any excuse to bind 
as allies the vacillating and wolfish Abenakis, panting for 
more plunder and victims; this tribe might so easily go over 
to the English, their villages on the Saco and Kennebec 
being dangerously nigh Governor Dudley's Boston. More- 
over, the French dared not rouse the Iroquois, so the 
Governor sent a war-party three thousand miles from Royal 
Mount to bag a handful of New England farmers instead of 
bigfaer crame at Albanv. 



&o v 



It happened that in 1704, "the old-fashioned frump, a 
r ery hard winter had laid in great stores of snow with great 
aving winds." A Februarv thaw had crusted the snow 



i/8 Old Paths of the New England Border 

in one boundless ice-sheet, circling the forty-one houses of 
our Puritan outpost, and, as the blacksmith said, "it was 
cold as the north side of a Jenooery gravestone by starlight." 
Sieur de Rouville left the Pickomegan (Green River) and 
advanced along the Deerfield, halting to reconnoitre under 
the west pines; the trappeur drew his pointed toque and 
gray cloak more closely under the bitter chill preceding 
dawn; discarding snowshoes, the half-starved band again 
advanced, carrying plentiful cords to bind the fluttering 
English birds whom they should snare, and now and again 
stopping, that the crunching under so large a body might 
appear but the rising and falling of the wind. Up they 
crawled on the natural ladder of a huge drift meeting the 
top of the palisade. A dreamless sleep enwrapt the inno- 
cent village, likewise the sentinel lulled by a mother's song 
to a teething babe; this one night, alack the day, Colonel 
Peter Schuyler's warning 1 was forgot and Parson Williams 
unheeded, having cried wolf too often. Raging with desire 
for food and plunder, the "red varmints" dropped within. 
The blockhouse of Sergeant Benoni Stebbins 2 — bullet- 
proof by virtue of bricks betiveen sheathings — was aroused 
by the awful war-whoops and death-cries of its neighbors. 

1 The vigilant commander of the northern militia, Colonel Peter Schuy- 
ler, Mayor of Albany, had forewarned Deerfield of the designs of French 
and Indians, says Chancellor Kent. Colonel Schuyler understood and 
had more influence with the Confederacy of the Five Nations than any 
other man. He chastised the Canadian French for destruction of frontier 
settlements. (Xew York Historical Society Collections.) Colonel 
Schuyler also (in 1710) presented through the Duke of Shrewsbury to 
Queen Anne the "four Indian Kings," who created a great sensation in 
London. 

2 The Stebbins garrison sheltered several families: Deacon David Hoyt 
(later captured and starved to death at Coos Meadows, now Newbury, 
Vt.), Joseph Catlin, and Benjamin Church were there: the women melted 
all the silver and pewter, and the enemy was kept at bay three hours until 
aid arrived under Captain Jonathan Wells, who drove the invaders to 
Pine Hill. 



The Sleeping - Village 



i/9 




Ell of the Joint Sheldon Homestead, Deerfield, Mass., 
Home of Five Generations, and Handed down to the 
Hon. George Sheldon. 

Silence Hoit "peeped cautiously out of a little dormer- 
window. Deerfield village was roaring with flames, the 
sky and snow were red, and leaping through the glare came 
the painted savage, a savage white face and the waving sword 
of a French officer in their midst." 1 



1 Silence, and Other Stories, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Copyright, 
i8q8, by Harper & Brothers. 

The vivid drama of Silence is akin to experiences of many a maid in the 
French and Indian wars, and Miss Wilkins has by her art made fiction 
appear more true than reality itself. 



1S0 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Hatfield, Hadley, and Northampton interpreted the glare 
in the heavens as Indians and flew to the rescue, meeting 
distracted John Sheldon, half -frozen, bringing news of the 
Sack. At Chicopee the friends of Sheldon's sweet young 
wife, Hannah Chapin, nodded to each other, saying, " Now, 
truly, she hath sad need of that pelisse, " for they, in jest, had 
quilted the future bride's wedding cloak of double thickness, 
three months before, laughingly saying: "in case the 
Indians should carry thee off to Canada. " Hannah Chapin 
proved herself a heroine, for the leap out of the window < if 
Ensign Sheldon's house (always, after that night, the ( >ld 
Indian house) sprained her ankle, which destined her to 
captivity, yet she tore a blanket in strips to protect John 
Sheldon's feet and urged him to leave her and alarm Hat- 
field. The pioneers drove out the enemy, and the remnant 
of the town took refuge at Captain Wells's without the 
stockade, he having a palisade all his own. 

Footsteps on the creaking snow of Deerfield Street and a 
light swish of petticoats, it is Silence looking over the 
meadow to the north. "David! David! David!" she 
calls, her fair wits slipping away with each step of her lover 
toward Canada. Widow Bishop, hastening after, harshly 
admonishes her to go to spinning: "There is scarce a yard 
of linen left in Deerfield." Seven months later, according 
to Goody Crane's prophecy, the moon an hour high, Silence 
at last recognizes David returning across the meadow with 
a white sheep's fleece over his shoulders. 

Go, gentle gales, and hear my siglis along 
The birds shall cease to tunc their evening song, 
The woods to breathe, the waving woods to move, 
And streams to murmur, ere I cease to love, 1 



1 Pope wrote his Autumn Pastoral that same remarkable year of 1704 
when the genius of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough won 
Blenheim, and the renown of British arms was rising to an unsurpassed 



The Deerfield Massacre and Alarm 181 

CARRIED CAPTIVE TO CANADA 

Watch our forlorn captives fording Green River's icy 
current, running at too swift a pace to freeze, yet in mid- 
summer, how delicious! y cool and transparent. John Wil- 
liams walks erect and austere among the French, who exult 
not in their victory, being sobered by the repulsiveness of 
Indian warfare, and the savages' broken promise to De 
Rouville to fight like civilized Frenchmen. Little Eunice 
is carried carefully by Whistling Serpent 1 and her youngest 
brother Samuel dragged on one of the sledges (recovered 
at Brattleboro) over frosted lake and river, for children 
are valuable assets as future converts 2 to the governing faith 
of the seigneurs: likewise the boy can hunt and fish for his 
indolent owner. The mother Eunice, drenched and fainting, 
is put to death by her Indian master. Blind with grief, 
Parson Williams stumbles on, laden with smoked moose 
and suffering painful cramps of mal a la raquette, yet cheering 
his fellows by reciting from the Good Book. The savages 
threaten them with burning alive, should one escape. 
What an extraordinary experience for the followers of 
John Cotton and Increase Mather! At evening the bivouac 
in the forest : the snow swept aside in a circle, around a fire 
crouch hardy Canadians hooded like Capuchin monks, and 
savages fantastic in war-paint, remnants of their last dance 

pitch of glory. Neither General nor Poet probably cast half-a-thought on 
contemporary wars or loves across the Atlantic. Yet, a few years later, 
England talked of nought else than the presentation at Court of the Amer- 
ican Kings, and the Spectator's sparkling satires on the Mohawk petitioners. 

1 "Whistling Serpent" is the name given to Eunice's Mohawk master 
by Mrs. Champney, who has written Eunice's strange adventures for 
children — Great Grandmother's Girls in New France. Mrs. Champney 
talked with descendants of the Caughnawagas and searched Jesuit 
" Relations." 

2 Jesuit zeal possessed converts among Iroquois of the Saut and Moun- 
tain, Abenakis of the Chaudiere, Hurons of Lorette, Algonquins of Three 
Rivers. 



182 Old Paths of the New England Border 




The Stoop of Parson Williams Homestead on road to 
Albany, built in i/<>~ by the town for their "Re- 
deemed Captive," to replace liis parsonage burned 
in the Sack. The salary of the Rci'. John Wil- 
liams, a Harvard graduate teas payable in pork, 
wheat, and Indian corn. 

in the Mission Square of Sault St. Louis (Caughnawaga) . 1 

Hither to Kanawake — "By the rapid" — they carried 

Eunice, child of Puritans, and the Jesuit taught her to forget 

her catechism, to the grief of her father. Like the little cap- 



1 Kana\vake\ or Caughnawaga, is situated at the head of Sault St. Louis 
Rapid opposite Lachine, about twelve miles from Montreal. 



The Convert at Caughnawaga 183 

tive Mary Field, 1 daughter of the courageous Field pioneers 
who braved several Deerfield massacres, Eunice espoused an 
Indian, 2 taking also to her heart the wilderness customs and 
dress. Perchance she sang also the songs of ancienne 
mere-patrie which floated from the passing raft, or that 
plaintive Caughnawaga song — " Rinunwes rinonwes, Ra- 
keni" (translated by a son of a Six-nation-chief, John 
Waniente Jocks, in Songs of the Great Dominion) : 

Maidex: 
"Well, father, what is thy word? 
My spirit is now to marry." 

Father: 
" Ashamed be thou, my chitd — 
Thou whom I hold my little one, — 
Thou art yet too young; 
Thou canst not get thee thy food. " 

Maidex (in the words of the chorus) : 
"I love him, I love him, father, — 
That young man. " 

1 The father of Mary Field (a son of the Deerfield pioneer Zeeheriah) 
fought the enemy in the North Meadows, hoping to rescue his family, all 
capture 1 or killed in 1704. He then pulled up stakes and travelled down 
river to East Guilford (Madison) on Long Island Sound, following his 
brother Ebenezer, the ancestor of David Dudley Field. A cousin, John 
Field, married Sally Coleman, the little captive of the shoe. The Me- 
morial Hall tablet to the Field pioneers was placed by Marshall Field of 
Chicago. 

2 Xo entreaties could coax Eunice Williams or Mary Field to dwell again 
among their kin. Eunice tarried several times at Longmeadow, Mass., 
with her brother, the Rev. Stephen Williams, as he records in his Diary : 
"Uncle and Aunt Edwards [the parents of Jonathan Edwards, from 
Windsor] and so many friends came to visit us, and our neighbors sent 
in so plentifully that we had even a Feast. ... At evening our 
young people sang melodiously that was very Gratefull to my Sister and 
company and I hope we are something endeared to her." In 1761, 
Eunice brought to Longmeadow her daughter Catharine (Flying Leg) and 
husband Grand Chief Onasategen (Francois Xavier). 



1 84 Old Paths of the New England Border 

From under the cross-crowned parish steeple at Caughna- 
vvaga, the girl Eunice looked out upon the romance of French 
colonization and Indian legend. 

Above the twisting waters of Lachine, Eunice saw on the 
opposite bank across the broad heart of the Lake of St. 
Louis bounded by the dim forests of Chateaugay and 
Beauharnois, a crumbling trading-post, built by the chiv- 
alrous Samuel de Champlain, later the residence of La Salle 
on his Seigniory, awarded by the Sulpitians 1 to him whom 
Louis XIV addressed as "Our dear and well-beloved Robert 
Cavalier Sieur de la Salle." 

They named the settlement La Chine to celebrate the 
Seignior's South Sea dream, to be the first traveller west- 
ward, ho! by this road to China. Instead, La Salle, ever 
a wall of adamant under jealous persecution, threw open 
a Great West and a Great South, guiding America into her 
richest possessions. Then came the struggle for a Conti- 
nent, and 

" The lilies withered where the Lion trod." 

The golden girdle is severed with which the practical 
La Salle, neither martyr nor dreamer, bound the north 
dominion of New France to a superb new south territory 
— Louisiana, — and both to Versailles; yet our fresh-water 
seas and the Mississippi are one eternal link, the other, the 
sentiment of La Belle France which clings alike to both 
the frost-land and the land of palms and roses. The 
stranger who has passed Carnival days in Canada or Louisi- 
ana perceives a distinct flavor of the Old Regime: whether 
at the buoyant storming of Montreal's Ice Palace with 
showers of light, and the festival of furs and color on skates, 
or in that gay atmosphere of delicious mystery in which 

"La Salle and his successors became feudal proprietors of La Chine, 
on the sole condition of delivering to the Seminary, on every change of 
ownership, a medal of fine silver, weighing one mark. " — La Salic and the 
Discovery of the Great West, Parkman. 



V ^tZk. 




^ r^ 



1 86 Old Paths of the New England Border 

move the significant pageants of Counts and King Rex at 
New Orleans. Where else on this continent is such an 
exuberance of gayety possible, as in these cities possessing 
so large an heritage of Latin blood ! 

Not far from Caughnawaga, Chambly, and Sorel, on the 
Island of Montreal, was Sault au Recollet Mission, the 
"Oso" (au Sault) Fort of hated memory to Deerfield 1 men 

"Faintly as tolls the evening chime 
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time. 

We '11 sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn 
Row, brothers row, the stream runs fast, 2 
The Rapids are near " 

who made entrance here only by running the Mohawk 
gauntlet, as Mehuman Hensdell and John Arms (once 
offered in exchange for Sieur de Vercheres) knew to their 
cost. Other captives were at the Iroquois fort at Oka on 
the Ottaw r a, not far distant from Lachine and St. Anne Bout 
de L'Isle. At the Rapid of St. Anne we still hear the echo 
of Tom Moore's "Canadian Boat Song" set to the rhythm of 
his boatmen as they sang and rowed the poet through the 
magnificent scenery of the St. Lawrence. 

1 Many New England maidens founded Canadian families. A daughter 
of Deerfield's blacksmith and town-clerk, Deacon Thomas French ; became 
the ancestor of the first Archbishop of Quebec, her daughter having 
married a Plessis of Metz in Lorraine, founders of "The Tanneries of 
Belair, " outside the gates of Montreal. 

Miss Baker's Deerfield ancestor, Abigail Stebbins, was led captive to 
the house of her husband, Jacques Desnoyon, a bushranger of Boucher- 
ville, her godfather being "the High and Mighty Seigneur Phillipe de 
Rigaud. Marquis de Vaudreuil, Chevalier de L'Ordre Militaire de St. 
Louis." Miss Baker succeeded in tracing eighteen captives in spite of 
their names being altered to a defiant degree on records ; those at Caugh- 
nawaga in Indian were translated for her by the Curate, Mr. Forbes. — 
True Stories of New England Captives, by C. Alice Baker. 

2 To this shrine of the "Saint of the green isle, " voyageurs never omit 
their offering. 



Running the Gauntlet at Oso 187 

At Oka on "Utawas tide," in the Church of Notre Dame 
de Lorette, were wedded 1 the Deerfield playmates, now 
converts, Josiah Riseing (baptized Ignace Raizenne) and 
Abigail Nims. A domain was granted them on account 
of the example of their piety, and a few miles' drive over 
sand dunes and the road cut by the New Englander Riseing 
through his primeval forest will bring you to their old home 
under the espionage of the Two Mountains on beautiful 
Lac de Deux Montagnes. 

Fortunate were Quentin Stockwell and Parson Williams 
to be carried first to Chambly, the Seigniory of Francois 
Hertel, "The Hero," father of Hertel de Rouville. The 
Hertels showered kindnesses on the prisoners, and attempted 
to buy vStephen Williams of his Indian master. Here 
Thankful Stebbins at sweet sixteen married a soldier of the 
camp — "La Vallee, " and nobles of the Old Regime stood 
sponsors for her children. With other New England girls 
and boys, Therese Steben had been graciously granted 
citizenship by Le Grande Monarche. Their petition to His 
Majesty was latterly discovered by Miss Baker behind a 
little tailor's shop in Quebec. 

Parson Williams was sent far from Eunice down the river. 

In a poem to Lady Charlotte Rawdon, Moore has also woven bits of 
legend of the Canadian tribes, and the poetical belief of the Hurons that 
the spirit departed to the Country of Souls is changed into a dove. Park- 
man relates a legend attached to a floating island in Lake Superior (Lac 
Frontenac); here no Indians dare land, for when their forefathers picked 
up the wonderful, round stones (copper) to heat their food, some Great 
Manito. or God of the Waters, thundered: "Who are these that steal the 
toys of my children 1 " 

'The Riseing marriage in 17 15 is recorded by Father Outre, with this 
addition: "who wish to remain with the Christian Indians not only re- 
nouncing their nation, but even wishing to live en sauvages. " (On the 
other hand several French captives collected by Colonel Partridge at 
Deerfield for exchange doggedly refused to return to Canada.) The most 
distinguished child of Abigail Nims Riseing — Marie Raizenne — became 
Lady of the Community of the Congregation. 



iS8 Old Paths of the New England Border 

After being threatened with torture by an Indian convert at 
the Abenaki fort, St. Francis, because he would not kiss the 
crucifix, he was purchased by Governor Vaudreuil and 
courteously lodged at his Montreal house : then paddled down 
to Quebec, picturesque with the frowning bastions of Fort 
Frontenac, transformed from wood to stone by La Salle 
when autocrat here, by favor of Count Frontenac and his 
followers, the best canoe men in America. After two years 
of adventure Mr. Williams was exchanged for the pirate, 
so-called, Captain Baptiste, and sailed for Boston. 1 Eleazer 
Williams, then a Freshman at Harvard, with his chum, 
Thomas Prince, walked sev r en miles by way of the Neck 
to hear his father preach at Thursday lecture. 

Deerfield's Old Manse stands a bit aloof in its dress of deep 
yellow and green doors, as the keeper of a thousand secrets. 
There is scarcely a crack in cornice or window-seat or 
yellow pine floor seasoned for thirteen years. Its North- 
east Wing's dormer window saw the six children of Samuel 
Carter "captivated" in 1704, and the birth of Joseph Allen, 
father of the famous Captain of Green Mountain Boys. 
Then the Allen house became "the wing" of Lawyer Sam 
Barnard's great house (entailed) and saw the sisters Nabby 
and Rachel and Sally weaving and sewing long seams for 
their wedding-day: arrayed in sky-blue silk they stood up 
together in the parlor one Sunday of 1792, with three bride- 
grooms from Greenfield in sheer ruffles and knee-buckles. 

You don't think of than there in the Manse at high noon 
As you pass : go again by the light of the moon, 

1 At Boston, Aug. 16, 1706, Samuel Sewall writes: "Spake that a suit 
of Cloaths might be made here for Mr. Williams. . . . Talk'd thor- 
oughly with Cotton Mather about selling Henchman's House: 
tells me Mr. Williams to preach the Lecture. ... I invited the 
Gov. to dine at Holms's." To this dinner Mr. Williams and Ensign 
Sheldon were invited. 



Deerneld's Old Manse 



189 




The Old Manse, Deerfield. 
"Built on honor" for Joseph Barnard in 1768, and home of the Parsons 
Willard. Residence of Mrs. Madeleine Yale Wynne and Miss Annie C. 
Putnam. The hip-roof Wing was the Samuel Carter House of 1604, 
sacked, 1704, and the lot was previously owned by Joseph Gillet, killed at 
Bloody Brook. Miss Wilkins wrote " Giles Corey " here. The Manse 
suggested the mysterious "Little Room" of Mrs. Wynne. 

And you will say they arc yet in town: — 
And in their old hems with the moon shining down, 
As it diil long ago. 1 

Dr. vVillard's chaise stopped at his parsonage opposite 
the Hoyt Tavern (Old Indian House) one eventful day of 

' Nabby and Rachel and Sail v. by Isabel H. Williams, included in the 
Story of the Old House by Catharine B. Yale. Airs. Yale's pretty picture 
of the Manse is written con amorc and illustrated with drawings of its 
quaint interior, the English piano, " the only one in town, " and the silver 
tankard made to order by Paul Revere for Joseph Barnard, now among 
the church silver. A silver spoon of one of the brides in blue is treasured 
at the Manse. 



190 Old Paths of the New England Border 

1807 and the lilies of the valley opened wider their fairy 
bells as he lifted out his bride, " the lovely Susan Barker' ' 
after a four days' journey from old Hingham. One may 
imagine her on the first Sunday, the observed of the village, 
dressed in fawn-colored spencer and white skirt, wearing 
a Leghorn hat trimmed with white. She was "of a lovely 
graceful figure, and charming innocence of face and ex- 
pression." Susan Barker 1 was one of that original family 
who remained loyal to the King fifty years after the Revolu- 
tion, friends of Airs. Judge Lyman of Northampton. The 
latch of the great gate of the Manse fell more often to Judge 
Lyman and his loaded carriage and pair than any other of 
the expected and unexpected guests. Emerson, Sumner, 
Dr. Henry Ware, Sr., Parkman, and the Rev. John Pierpont 
were visitors. Mrs. Willard's table overflowed, for any 
respectable traveller felt at liberty to stop at the minister's 
for dinner, just as at the hospitable Dominie's on the Hudson. 

Miss Willard tells us that her father eked out his salary 
"by tutoring youths of the best Boston families — the 
Jacksons, Codmans, and Thorndikes": often Harvard 
delinquents were rusticated into the good man's care. 
The story goes that "one of the Lowell tribe," a cousin of 
the poet, Edward Jackson Lowell, being called before the 
Harvard Committee, said, "Gentlemen, please be as quick 
as you can, as I have my horse out here and he is very un- 
easy." This was deemed most impertinent, and they imme- 
diately took action and rusticated him to Parson Willard's. 2 



' See chapters "Hingham " and " Milton " in Old Paths and Legends of 
New England, Vol. I. 

2 The Rev. Samuel Willard lived in the Manse nigh on fifty years except 
a few years at Hingham, when occupied by Rev. Adolphus Dickinson, and 
Colonel Wilson and his four romantic daughters who pored over Scott, 
Byron, and Miss Austen in the old garret. 

Many interesting names appear among Mr. Willard's contemporaries 
appointed to councils on his ordination: Rev. Dr. Abiel Holms (father 



Uncle Eph 191 

Miss Wilkins picked her first four-leafed clover at the 
Manse, near the old walk of diamond, colored stones selected 
by the blind parson, and Deerfield is the scene of her Old 
Lady Filigree. To an enthralled "Ghost Club," at The 
Manse, Mrs. Wynne first told the story of the mysterious 
Little Room, 1 this witching tale was passed on and on, until 
on its debut in print, many readers exclaimed, "Why, where 
have I heard of that Little Room! Can it be plagiarized? ' 

THE OLD ALBANY ROAD 

Take good heed of the weather-worn sign To Albany and 
follow Deerfield 's sunset path down Hitchcock or Middle 
Lane to the old Albany ford, and to Broughton's Pond 
crested with lily-pads. A century and a half ago this was 
not a grass-grown lane but the King's highway to the Hudson 
and the Great Lakes, and you might have saluted Captain 
Nathaniel Dwight as he left his quarters in the Williams 
house to lead Hampshire County troops against Canada. 

Mark on the left the stoop smothered in lilacs dedicated to 
flirtations ever since Aunt Spiddy Hoyt built it with eggs 
she sold, and not with her good man's profits on " wigges and 
foretops. " The neighbors thought "Aunt Spiddy's Con- 
trivance" "a great extravagance." Her son, Gen. Epa- 
phras Hoyt, as high sheriff, wore a blue brass-buttoned 
coat, cockade, and crimson sash — he wrote here his Ind an 

of Dr. O. W. Holmes), the Rev. David Osgood of Medford, Rev. Daniel 
Chaplin of Groton, Rev. John Barnard of Salem, Rev. Jesse Appleton, N. 
H., Rev. Abiel Abbott of Beverly, also Rev. Roger Newton of Green- 
field, and Rev. Theophilus Packard, Scribe. 

Richard Hildreth was born at the Manse; Hawthorne says on his first 
visit to the "noble hall" of the Boston Athenceum that "The most re- 
markable sight, however, was Mr. Hildreth, writing his history of the 
United States ... as quiet and absorbed as he would be in the 
loneliest study; . . . It is very curious thus to have a glimpse of a 
book in process of creation under one's eye." — American Note-Books. 

1 The Little Room and 0*her Stories, by Madeleine Yale Wynne. 



192 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



Wars. Deacon Hitchcock's boy Edward (afterward Pres- 
ident of Amherst) and "Uncle Eph" used to fly from Aunt 
Spiddy's broom on cleaning and baking days to their study 
in the big elm. Many a gander-party foregathered before 

the blaze o' winter nights 
swapping war stories: Ser- 
geant John Hawks, the hero 
of Fort Massachusetts, 
gran'ther Hoyt, 1 and Dea- 
con Nims ; moreover Deacon 
Justin Hitchcock, the next- 
door neighbor, the fifer 
who marched with Captain 
Locke's minute-men would 
tell how Captain Stebbins 
captured the baggage train 
of General Burgoyne and 
how he had compelled many 
a Tory to sign good reso- 
lutions. 

Deerfield's Tory min- 
ister, Mr. Ashley, had 
spoken of the doom of 
those Americans fallen 
at Lexington, as being 
fearful in the next world. 
A week later he found his 
pulpit door spiked up. 
Turning to Deacon A., 
a blacksmith, he requested him to undo the fastening, 
who, with a very proper gravity, replied that he did not 




Sign of the Burk Tavern, Bernard- 
ston, one of the garrison liouscs of 
the cordon of forts commanded by Colo- 
nel Ephraim Williams. In Memo- 
rial J J all, Deerfield. 



'Jonathan Hoyt was bought for twenty dollars from his Indian master 
on the streets of Quebec by the son of Governor Dudley. The Indian 
fame later to visit his boy, to whom he was devoted. 



The "Little Brown House" 193 

use his hammer on the Sabbath. Finally an axe was 
procured. 

Another day an incensed patriot neighbor jostled him. 
Mr. Ashley queried why this rude treatment, saying, "You 
should not rebuke an Elder," etc. He replied: "An elder 
an elder! — if you had not said you was an elder, I should 
have thought you was a poison sumach." 

A dweller on Old Street many years before his death had 
a copper coffin built for himself, declaring emphatically, 
"I'll be d — d if I go snappin' raound hell in a hemlock 
coffin. " 

At Shelburne Falls — formerly Deerfield Northwest — some 
one remarked that the water in the river was very low. 
"Yaas," drawled a bystander, "it lacks a quart of being 
any water in it. " 

This "Little Brown House on the Albany Road" is one 
of Deerfield' s studios, the village being absorbed in Art 
with Crafts. You may hear the clack of looms and the file 
at the smithy, the plane of the cabinet-maker, the rustle 
of the basket-weavers' reeds and willows. Marvellous early 
patterns come to the "Blue and White" fraternity from 
the tide-water families of " Virginny," and the New England 
West, to live again in delicate hand-made dyes and tufted 
coverlets. 

There are interesting painted walls in Deerfield and 
Bernardston. In Old-Time Wall-Papers, by Kate Sanborn, 
is a capital reproduction of the scenic wall-paper in the 
par' or of the Ebenezer Hinsdale house on Old Street. 




An heirloom. 
13 



NORTHAMPTON (NONOTUCK) 1654 

" Enterprise, traffic, factory wheels, steam whistles, busy industries, en- 
riching and enlivening the people, have not spoilt the landscape, or robbed 
the recesses, roads, foot-paths, and bridle-paths of their romance, their love- 
liness, their legends, their traditions or their poetry." — The Connecticut 
River Valley, by the Rt. Rev. Frederic Dan Huntington. 

Below Deerfield, the broad, fair Connecticut glides out 
between Mts. Toby and Sugar-Loaf at sweet Sunderland 
■ — village of the plain— and sweeps in magnificent curves 
through Nonotuck Valley toward Mt. Tom and the Great 
Falls at South Hadley. 

It would seem as if the river endeavored to display its 
silvery beauty to greatest advantage while within range of 
the kingly mountains, Holyoke and Tom, and to double 
the area of unrivalled meadows for the pioneer. In this 
valley of Nonotuck, or Midst of the River, lie the towns 
of Old Northampton, Hadley, and Hatfield. On the 183 1 
map of Nonotuck (drawn before the river left its "Old 
Bed" at Northampton) the Connecticut loops in a splendid 
double ox-bow; the north six-mile loop is the Hadley 
"Honey-pot," the south bow incloses the Hockanum 
meadows at the foot of Nonotuck, the north spur of Mt. 
Tom, named by President Hitchcock of Amherst, "the 
Mountain of the Blest." 

Stedman's tribute to Northampton, written from " High 
Ridge," Williamsburg, contains these lines: 

" There still the giant warders stand, 

.And watch the currents downward flow, 
And westward still with steady hand 
The river bends her silver bow." 

If you would wish to see this caressing play of mountain 

194 



The Road to Old Hadlcy 195 

and river, follow the meadow road from Northampton to 
Hockanum Ferry and summon the weather-beaten flatboat 
from the opposite shore by horn — old style — (Ill-betide 
the would-be passenger who is unable to blow a horn, he 
must wait for the next comer.) 

As you ride to the ferry cross meadow, on your left 
the earliest divisions of the coveted alluvial meadows are 
Venturer's Field, which extended from Walnut Trees to 
Pomeroy Terrace, King's Hollow, Webb's Hollow, Bark 
Wigwam near Shepherd's Island, once a part of the Shep- 
herd farm of 300 acres, and Old Rainbow where you might 
once have seen reaping hooks in use. In Northampton 
it was a common saying, that one's social position was 
assured if he owned meadow land and was a member of the 
"Old Church" of Mather, Stoddard, and Edwards. 

Those who journeyed in Indian days were challenged 
at the gate of the Northampton palisades ; ' these being 
under repair in 1680, the town ordered that married persons 
should build 3 rods of palisades each, and single persons 
2 rods. 

The hamlet of Hockanum, established on a very narrow 
shelf between Mount Holyoke and the river, is very lovely; 
verdant farms and orchards decorate the gentle upward 
slope to the forest wood-lots on the mountain range. In 
this region Cooper placed the scene of The Wept of Wish- 
t ou-Wish; Ruth Heathcote, or Narra-mattah, is the captive 
heroine who, according to the tale, weds the Chief Canonchet 
of the Narragansetts. 

If you choose to follow the level road north ' long river 

1 The western line of fortification extended from the rear of the main 
building of Smith College and President Seelye's house to Miss Tucker's 
(formerly Rev. Gordon Hall's, owned in 1780 by Gen. William Lyman, 
a member of Congress), thence to Henshaw Avenue; thence to west of 
tVe house of Henry R. Hinckley on Prospect St., built in part by the 
Rev. Solomon Stoddard in 1684, and by his son, Col. John Stoddard. 



196 Old Paths of the New England Border 

through Hockanum, 1 you will turn with the great bend into 
historic Hadley's Elm Street near Goodman's Ferry. (This 
ferry was the old stage-route, the way by which Springfield 
traffic coming up the east side entered Northampton.) 
Just one wine-glass elm picked from West Street's four 
royal rows, unmatched on the continent, would be the 
vanity of any city. 

Who would not wish to have witnessed that most im- 
posing of all musters in Hadley's mile-long street, when 
the entire militia of Western Massachusetts was ordered 
out by General Ebenezer Mattoon, an officer at the battle 
of Saratoga! Or the marching into Hadley in 1895 of the 
Third Corps and the old soldiers from the regiments of 
Major-General Hooker, to honor "Fighting Joe's" birth- 
place ; its gray gambrel has lately been burned ; the Academy 
here, where General Hooker was educated, was founded by 
Governor Hopkins. 

Mere striplings were these elms when daring Parson 
Russell harbored the Regicides Goffe and Whalley. Con- 
tinental troops were stationed within the eight-foot 
stockade to repulse Indians jealous for their maize fields. 
The legend of the "Angel of Hadley" is connected with 
General Goffe, who, according to tradition, mysteriously 
appeared sword in hand in the midst of an Indian attack 
of 1675, and led the people to safety. 2 

The Indian fort southeast of the town, where Fort River 
flows into the Connecticut from Amherst and " Indian Hill" 
opposite, are supposed to be aboriginal battle-grounds, 

1 North from Hockanum Ferry is the home of Clifton Johnson, the 
sympathetic illustrator of life in old New England. 

2 Elbridge Kingsley's picture representing the "Angel of the Lord" at 
Hadley meeting-house is. reproduced (with other of his remarkable en- 
gravings of Hadley West Street, on which he lives) in the Souvenir book 
published on the meeting of the Third Corps Union. Included also is, 
How Fighting Joe Hooker took Lookout Mountain, by Clarence Hawkes, 
the blind poet of Hadley. 




to 

to 



o 



198 Old Paths of the New England Border 

because the Connecticut year after year uncovers curious 
Indian weapons. 

In North Hacllev, Under a Colonial Roof-Tree, Frederick 
Dan Huntington, the beloved Bishop, was born. His 
daughter, Miss Arriah Huntington, lives at the old place, 
and has given us a vivid picture of this finest type of a 
Vallev homestead, 1 built by Captain Moses Porter in 1752. 
An unusual feature is the generous "stoop" extending 
the whole western length of the house ; the table is set there 
for the reapers, the churning and other work carried on 
there in summer time; at nightfall it becomes a grateful 
retreat after the day's labor. "Through the stillness we 
may hear the tread of horses' hoofs crossing the bridge by 
the mill a mile away." 

Hadley toward the east, or Hadley Third Precinct, is the 
beautiful town of Amherst. 2 Rev. David Parsons was the 
first minister and among the first settlers were the families 
of Cowles, Dickinson, Hawley, Ingram, Chauncey, Nash, 
Scoville, and Wells. 

THE SOUTH ROAD TO MOUNT TOM 

To-day, you choose the south road from Hockanum 
Ferry, and discover that most charming of pine-crowned 
cliffs — Titan's pier; then wind down dale and up hill in 
sight of Old Rock Ferry toward the picturesque pass at 
Smith's Ferry. 

1 A sketch with illustration of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington home- 
stead is included in Bacon's volume on The Connecticut River. 

2 Amherst lies also in the great basin south of Mt. Toby, together with 
Hadley, Leveret t, and Sunderland on the east side of the Connecticut 
and on the west side Northampton and the three other Hamptons, Hat- 
field, Williamsburg, and Whately. The meadow intervals in the valley 
contain from 500 to 5000 acres and rise in terraces. Electric cars fa- 
cilitate the pleasure of a trip through the Deerfield Valley as far north as 
Greenfield and Turner's Falls. 



Mt. Tom 199 

You are traversing "the short road" between Amherst 
and South Hadley, the pastoral seat of Mount Holyoke 
College, that inspiration of Mary Lyon. Goodenovv Park 
within the college grounds commands the full sweep of the 
range. You will not forget to visit the Observatory, the 
Falls at Lake Nonotuck, and to stroll through the Pass of 
Thermopylae, and up Granby Hill for the superb prospect. 

Finally you attain the bold summit of Mt. Tom by railway 
from the city of Holyoke (famous for its paper-mills) seated 
by the Great Rapids ; so plentiful were shad here that the 
boatmen's taverns overflowed with fishermen and fishermen's 
luck, with 2000 shad at a haul. 

Even half-way up Mt. Tom at Mountain Park, the 
glorious air is a rare elixir for lungs and brain, exhilarating 
without oppression; as you face Mt. Holyoke the buzz 
of Pandora's winged troubles is imperceptible before the 
beauty of the splendid battalion of mountains on the horizon. 
Mt. Monadnoek signalled Mt. Tom by mirror for the first 
time in 1898. This day is cloudless, but on the next a 
fog-sea fills the valley; by noon, playful clouds chase up 
to the summit and down on the other side, then become 
sullen and ragged with lightning; or the clouds are massed 
below like a "sea of cotton," and you, in clear air, watch 
the sun transform them into a "fleece of gold," the phrase of 
Lafcadio Hearn; now, they disperse in a gamut from orange 
to pink, and far below appears a white toy village, East- 
hampton, and the golden river, " River of Pines," flowing 
down from Agiochook (Mt. Washington), the Indians' 
Throne of the Great Spirit. 

The old man of the mountain, Phoebus Pomeroy, relates 
the legend of how "Little Mountain" came to be: "Old 
Claw-foot got angry at the folks in South Hadley, and 
filled his leather apron with rocks to throw at them; but 
the apron strings broke, and the rocks fell in a heap and 
made Little Mountain." 



2oo Old Paths of the New England Border 




Mount Tom in Winter. 

From South Hadley you return to Northampton by 
Smith's Ferry or Lower Farms. Pascommuck was the 
scene of a frightful Indian raid in 1704. Here Benjamin 
Wright's house (afterwards the Elias Lyman place and 
Cargill homestead or "Old Long House") was fired by 
spiked arrows dipped in brimstone, and extinguished by 
the grit of Thomas Stebbins, who wrapped himself in a 
feather bed and "put for" the well. 1 

In Easthampton, Joseph Bartlett's and Major Jonathan 
Clapp's were fortified houses. Clapp's tavern was the 
famous hostelry between Connecticut and Vermont. Willis- 
ton Seminary (founded by the Hon. Samuel Williston) 

1 The Indians escaped over Pomeroy Mountain after having killed or 
taken captive the families of John Webb, John Searl, Benoni Jones, and 
Benjamin and Samuel Janes. 




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202 Old Paths of the New England Border 

recalls Easthampton's first minister, Rev. Payson Williston, 
whose beautiful wife was the daughter of Rev. Nathan 
Birdseye. 

An interesting record was made of the number of houses 
in each Connecticut Valley town, about the time Springfield 
was burned by the Indians in 1675; twenty years before 
the Springfield commissioners (John Pynchon, Elizur 
Holyoke, and Deacon Samuel Chapin 1 ) laid out to the 
Planters, "the boundes of Nonotuck from the upper end 
of the little Meaddowe called by the Indians Cappawonke 
[Hatfield] — to the great fales [Falls] to Springfield ward." 
This list of houses is preserved in the British Museum 2 : 

Weathersfield 150 Springfield Burnt 50 Hatfield 50 
Hartford 500 Haclley 100 Northfield 30 

Winsor 400 Northampton 100 Deerfield 30 

During border-wars, from under every one of Northamp- 
ton's roofs, men went forth on the most hazardous ad- 
ventures; Captain John Parsons conducted the "Grand 
Scout towards West river" in Queen Anne's War; Captain 
Benjamin Wright and Lieutenant John King received 
government bounties for the Cowasset scout ; Captain John 
Taylor was killed at Pascommuck, and Captain Thomas 
Baker of a long romantic history was carried captive to 
Canada and married Madame le Beau, a child-captive from 
Dover, N. H. 

The veteran military commander was Colonel Samuel 
Partridge of Hatfield ; Colonels John Worthington of Spring- 

1 The influential Deacon Samuel Chapin of Springfield was a founder 
of the church in Northampton, and the original of the statue of The 
Puritan by A. St. Gaudens; Springfield has also a statue to Sergeant 
Miles Morgan, a hero of 1675. The first street laid out. in Springfield 
was named for Col. Worthington. 

2 Communicated through the courtesy of Lieut. C. D. Parkhurst of 
Fort Monroe. Trumbull's History of Northampton. 



Famous Scouts of the Border 203 

field and Israel Williams commanded the Hampshire 
County regiments. 

By the advice of Colonel John Stoddard — in charge of 
general defence and commissioned to snatch back our captive 
people from the reluctant French — large dogs were trained 
to ferret out trails in service of the scouting parties ranging 
from fort to fort; from Fort Dummer to Pittsfield and 
Hoosac. Lieut. Timothy Dwight of Northampton was 
first commander of Fort Dummer near Brattleborough, Vt. 

Mere statistics which concern the daring Rangers, inured 
to greatest fatigue and danger, recall Cooper's romances. 
A letter of instruction to Captain Caleb Lyman dated 
Boston, June 19, 1755, runs: 

"You must perform a scout of at least thirty days upon 
every marching. . . . And before you receive the bountv 
for any Indian killed or captured, you must deliver up the 
person captivated, or scalps of those you kill. Phipps." 

Marching forces were allowed for rations by the Com- 
missary General, John Wheelwright: i lb. of bread, i lb. of 
pork, 1 gill of rum, per day. 

The load of the ranging corps alone was no sinecure, 
carrying thirty days' provisions with muskets; now camping 
under brush, now marching on snowshoes or lying in am- 
buscade by a wilderness trail; in combat generally superior 
to the Indian, in finesse little inferior. 

Troublous times are depicted in the letters of Colonel 
Seth Pomeroy to his wife 1 ; he was ever at the front, Ensign 
in 1743, Brigadier-General in 1775. One letter is written 
after "a warm engagement" before Louisburg, others from 
Fort Massachusetts, and from Albany in 1755 where 5000 
troops assembled under Sir William Johnson for the ex- 
pedition against Crown Point. 

1 The letters of Gen. Pomeroy are quoted by the courtesy of Mrs. William 
Francis Bartlett (nee Pomeroy) of Pittsfield. 



204 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Major Seth Pomeroy to His Wife. 

" Monday Morning 4 o'clock. Fort Massachusetts, Aug. 3rd, 1747. 
" My dear and Beloved Wife, 

" I have not time with ink and pen to say much but hope 
to have an opportunity in a little time to speak face to face. 
We live at the Fort, well; my dinner yesterday 
was buiscake, suet, Whortleberry pudding and a good piece 
of corned beef with squashes and turnips — no cider, but 
a good appetite . . . last Friday night the Indians 
were about the Fort. 

"Boston, Oct. 22, 1747. 
"No longer than I have business shall I stay, for it is 
no delightsome place. 1 have bought an English girl's time 
for five years I hope will prove well, for I know I gave price 
enough for her. If you have an opportunity to send me 
a horse and bridle I should be glad to have it done (saddle 
I can have here). If no other way I design to buy a horse 
and bring her up, for I am determined if it is in my power 
that you shall have help by a maid to ease you of some 
of your hard labor. " 

The Major sent the maid to Mrs. Pomeroy by land with 
the following letter (the supplies being sent around by 
Long Island Sound to Warehouse Point, were poled in 
flatboats to the "Landing" below Northampton and loaded 
on wood-sleds. "Jed Day's Landing" was long famous:) 

" Boston, Nov. 7. 

"The Thanksgiving I hear is week after next, but I hope 
to keep one next week at my own house. I send a receipt 
of things I have sent by water, . . . Let one of the 
boatmen go directly after them. Elisha and Mr. Wright 
have things in the same vessel." 

"Albany, July i$ih, 1755. 

" My Dear — I have slipt several opportunities hoping 
soon to be able to Inform you more Particularly how things 
occur than I now can — in general the armv are well and 



Letters from the Seat of War 



205 



in high spirits but not without some fears what may have 
happened to Col. Titcomb. By whom our stores were ex- 
pected, he not yet heard of. . . . I know of nothing 
now to hinder our marching but for want of Stores. 

" Governor Shirley is here General Johnson is also here. 
. . . "We have frequent news from ye Ohio by Indians that 
Mr. Johnson hath sent some time ago to Gen. Braddock. . . . 




.4 Mt. Tom Brook. 



r iew Across the Connecticut River from Holyoke, 
with Mt. Holyoke Range and Old Boatmen's 
Tavern. 

I think there is ye greatest Probability that General Braddock 
is master of Ohio — Before this time. . . . The People 
in this place are kind and seem to be hasty to put forward 
the Expedition. . . . What he [Governor Shirley] designs 
this Day I can't tell, he sent a Sergt this morning Desiring 



206 Old Paths of the New England Border 

me to dine with him and I suppose ye rest of ye Field 
officers are invited also. 

" Seth Pomeroy." 

In '75, as he was returning for a rest, Colonel Pomeroy 
received the news that the army had left Cambridge; in 
spite of his threescore years and ten he unhitched his horse 
from the wagon, mounted, and arrived at Bunker Hill amid 
roar of cannon. General Putnam wrung his hand: "Pom- 
eroy, you here!" As the ammunition gave out, he walked 
backward from the field, saying, "No enemy shall ever 
sav he saw the back of Seth Pomeroy." On his way to 
join Washington at the front, he died at Peekskill. 1 

Colonel Seth Pomeroy was of a race of noted gunsmiths 
and used the anvil said to have been brought over to Wind- 
sor, Conn., by Eltweed Pomeroy: his family traditions run 
back to Sir Ralph de Pomeroy who accompanied William 
the Conqueror to England; ponderous horseshoes were 
invented by Pomeroys for Tudors and Plantagenets. To 
induce Eltweed Pomeroy to found an armory in this coun- 
try, the Colony granted him 1000 acres on the Connecticut 
River Even fifty years after the death of Col. Seth, Canada 
Indians boasted of his guns as masterpieces for a long and 
unerring shot. Col. Seth was a blacksmith in all its branches, 
employing people to make his guns: Seth Pomeroy s Account 
Book is a replica of pioneer times (each man then being 
compelled to be a Jack of many trades, from "taking care 
of Ye clock, making a pair of tongs," to "puling a tooth" 
and "carrving a warrant to Noah S."). The accounts are 

1 At the dedication of the monument to General Seth Pomeroy un- 
veiled at Peekskill-on-Hudson, by the Sons of the Revolution of the 
State of New York on the anniversary of Bunker Hill, i8q8, the address 
was by George E. Pomeroy of Toledo. Present were delegates from the 
Order of the Cincinnati, Society of the War of 18 13, Society of Foreign 
Wars, Society of Colonial Wars, Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 
Daughters of the Cincinnati, and Daughters of the Revolution. 




'holograph by Katherine E. McClellan. 

Ready for the Colonial Ball in Grandmother's Wedding-veil, on the 250th 
Anniversary of Northampton, Mass. 



A Typical Courtship 207 

to familiar Northampton names: "Caleb Strong Dr. 1739," 
Sam Kingsley, Deacon Allin, Phinehas King, Preserved 
Bartlett, Sam'l Wait. 1 

In spite of the raging of the heathen roundabout pioneer 
hearthstones, Rev. Solomon Stoddard (whom the Indians 
refrained from firing upon because they believed him "the 
Englishman's god") was so much concerned about his 
people's domestic extravagances that he begged the Rev. 
Increase Mather to mention it to the Governor for refor- 
mation : " many sins are grown so in fashion, that it becomes 
a question whether it be sins or not . . . especially 
. that intolerable pride in clothes and hair." Soon 
after, "for wearing silk and in flaunting manner," Hannah 
Lyman 2 and two daughters of the honored Elder John 
Strong were presented at the court; also several young 
men "for wearing long hair, greate bootes and gold and 
silver lace." 

A typical courtship of ye olden time was that of the Rev. 
Mr. Mix. He journeyed from Wethersfield to Northampton, 
called on Mr. Stoddard, and asked to see his five daughters. 
After a few minutes' conversation, he offered Mary his hand 
and heart, saying he would smoke a pipe with her father 
while she made up her mind. The pipe was not long enough, 
however, and Mr. Mix returned to Wethersfield, receiving 
shortlv the following:: 



"Rev. Mr. Mix: — Yes. 



"Northampton, March i6g-. 
"Mary Stoddard." 



1 Seth Pomeroy's Account Book and his anvil are the property of 
Mrs. Edward Pomeroy of Pittsfield; his tortoise-shell tobacco box 
and drinking-glass, a gift of the French officer Dieskau, of Edward Van 
S. Pomeroy, Esq. A Pomeroy musket is owned by S. Harris Pomeroy, 
Esq., of New York. 

2 Land in the centre of Northampton was held by the Strong family for 
103 years. Elder John Strong came over on the Mary and John with the 



20S Old Paths of the New England Border 

Rebekah Stoddard married Lieutenant Joseph Hawley 
of Northampton, their son being the distinguished statesman, 
Major Joseph Hawley. The beautiful Esther Stoddard 
became the wife of the Rev. Timothy Edwards and her 
son Jonathan Edwards l was born in the year of the Sack 
of Deerfield, when Mrs. Eunice Mather Williams, their 
half-sister, perished. 

The postscript of a remarkable letter of Mrs. Stoddard 
to her daughter at South Windsor on the birth of Jonathan 
is very practical: 

" I would have sent you half a thousand of pins and a 
porrenger of marmalat if I had an opportunity: If any 
of your town come up and call here, I would send it. Give 
my love to son Edwards and the children. " 2 

This custom of sending packages by kind neighbors con- 
tinued until the day of railroads. The note-book of School- 
master Joseph Hawley of Pudding Lane (Hawley St.) when 
starting on a trip to Boston was filled with such varied 
items as: "Capt. Partridge, a dial and a dish kettle "- 
son Joseph, speckled red ribbon, whistles, buckles and 

Rev. John Warham and William Clark, a Planter and one of the seven 
pillars of Northampton Church. Among the unusually large families 
in Northampton Elder Strong's was the largest with eighteen children. 
His purchase included John Webbs home-lot, corner of Main and South 
Sts., the late Enos Parsons house, extending westerly to the Academy 
of Music, the gift of E. H. R. Lyman to the city. 

i Little Jonathan Edwards was born in a clerical atmosphere; his Aunts 
Stoddard had married famous preachers, and in those days the minister 
was the head of the town. His sisters also married leaders in the Province, 
so that, counting the "in-laws," the Warham-Mather-Stoddard-Edwards- 
Pierpont connection were an influential clan and a positive factor in any 
undertaking in New England. 

2 This eminent woman, Esther Mather Stoddard, was the daughter of 
the Rev. John Warham, founder of Windsor. Of her other daughters, 
Christian married the Rev. William Williams of Hatfield, Sarah, the Rev. 
Samuel Whitman of Farmington, and Hannah, the Rev. William Williams 
of Weston. 



At Judge Lyman's, Northampton 209 

fish hooks" — "a shilling worth of plumb and spice " — "2 psal- 
ters a bason and a quart pot" — " a place for Mary Holton." 
It was the same even as late as Judge Lyman's day; 
his daughter Mrs. Lesley writes in her delightful Recol- 
lections of My Mother: 

" There were no expresses then, and so when it was known 
in the village of Northampton that Judge and Mrs. Lyman 
were going to Boston (and they always took pains to make 
it known) a throng of neighbors were coming in the whole 
evening before; not only to take an affectionate leave but 
to bring parcels of every size and shape, and commissions 
of every variety. One came with a dress she wanted to 
send to a daughter at school ; — one brought patterns of dry 
goods, with a request that Mrs. Lyman would purchase and 
bring home dresses for a family of five. And would she go 
to the orphan asylum and see if a good child of ten could 
be bound out to another neighbor? . . . Would Mrs. 
Lyman bring the child back with her? . . . The 
neighbors walked into the library where the packing was 
going on, and when all the family trunks were filled my 
father called out heartily, ' Here, Hiram, bring down another 
trunk from the garret, the largest you can rind, to hold all 
these parcels.' ... A little boy came timidly in with 
a bundle nearly as large as himself, and 'would this be too 
large for Mrs. Lyman to carry to grandmother?' — 'No, 
indeed, tell your mother I'll carry anything short of a 
cooking stove.' 'Another trunk, Hiram,' said my father; 
'and ask the driver to wait five minutes.' Those were the 
times when people could wait five minutes for a family so 
well known and beloved. . . . our driver had only 
to whip up his horses a little faster before he came to the 
Belchertown hills; and when he came to those the elders 
got out and lightened the load." 1 At Belchertown, a few 

1 Recollections of My Mother Mrs. Anne Jean Lyman, oj Northampton. 
Being a Picture of Domestic and Social Life in New Engla)id. Houghton, 
Mifflin and Company. 



210 Old Paths of the New England Border 

miles from Amherst, lived for a time J. G. Holland and 
Eugene Field. 

In Southampton, one Sabbath during the sermon the 
audience of the Rev. Jonathan Judd suddenly left him at 
the sound of a gunshot at a "bare." Also, by Parson 
Judd's Diary, we find that he, at least, stood by Jonathan 
Edwards on his melancholy departure, after being deposed 
from Northampton Church: "Oct. 16 — Met Mr. Edwards 
and family at Bartlett's Mills and rid some miles." 

The Northampton Octogenarian has a reminiscence of 
one who was a leetle nigh: "so penurious was Old Lick 
Sheldon, that it was said whenever he went down to the 
meadow to work, he would stop his clock from running, 
thinking it would last longer." 1 

There is a tradition in the Strong family that when the 
Rev. John Hooker, the fourth minister of Northampton, 
was married to the sister of Colonel Worthington at Spring- 
field in 1755 his bride, according to the etiquette of the 
period, rode to her new home on a pillion behind one of 
Mr. Hooker's deacons. 

The first tea ever seen in Northampton was sent to Colonel 
Timothy Dwight in 1746 and called "bohea. " The family 
steeped it all up at once as an herb drink, and finding it 
bitter, threw it away in disgust. The delightful New 



' The Hampshire Gazette was founded in 1786 by William Butler, who 
married a daughter of Colonel John Brown of Pittsfield, and built on 
Hawley Street, where also stands the old Clark tavern, the Washburn 
residence. Ezra Clark built his homestead near the toll gate on Bridge 
street. Lieutenant William Clark, the pioneer, moved from Dorchester in 
1659 to Northampton. His wife rode on horseback, with panniers, 
carrying one boy in each basket and one in her lap, her husband pro- 
ceeding on foot. Antiquities of Northampton by Rev. Solomon Clark. 

Anniversary edition of the Hampshire Gazette. Its present editor, 
Henry S. Gere, author of Reminiscences of Old Northampton, 1840 to 18 jo, 
is the senior editor of Western Massachusetts. 










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212 Old Paths of the New England Border 

England homestead built by Colonel Dwight (the father 
of the first President Dwight of Yale) , afterwards occupied 
by Nathan Storrs and by Dr. Charles Walker, stands on 
King Street in company with the Hopkins and Judge 
William A. Allen homestead ; also the Josiah Dwight Whit- 
ney house built on the site of the home of Jonathan 
Edwards. A remarkable photograph is extant of the 
distinguished Whitney family, under the "Jonathan Ed- 
wards Elm." 

King Street recalls Captain John King, who named 
Northampton in honor of his native town in England. An 
Indian war-club captured by his son Lieutenant John 
King is in the possession of his descendants. 

At Florence, the village created by the silk industry, 
the oldest inhabitants are the Warner family near the fork 
of the road to " great bridge." 

The Parsons homestead (1755) on South Street, or "Liek- 
ingwater, " together with the famous Parsons Elm, brought 
up by Noah Parsons from the meadows on horseback, make 
a charming picture near the centre of a busy city. The 
Clapp homestead has always been proud of its grand stair- 
case. On old South Street at the corner of Mill Lane lived 
the organist of the "Old Church" and director of the singing 
school, — Professor George Kingsley. On Elm Street is 
the gambrel roof of the Judge Samuel Henshaw house for 
a time occupied by Sidney E. Bridgman, later owned by 
Bishop Huntington. 

At 13 Main Street the hospitable and charming Miss Polly 
Pomeroy entertained her friends. She is said to have 
borne a striking resemblance to Adelaide, the Queen of 
Louis Philippe. The six sons and six daughters of the 
Jonathan Lyman family were remarkable for rare beauty. 
Other hostesses of Mrs. Judge Lyman's day were Mrs. 
Isaac Bates, Mrs. Thomas Shepherd, Mrs. Judge Dewey, 



Paradise Woods, Northampton 213 

Mrs. Hopkins, Mrs. Sam'l Wells, and the Misses Cochrane. 

On Pleasant Street, or " Bartlett's Lane," so-called from 
the gate-keeper, is the house of Hon. Eli P. Ashmun, member 
of Congress, later occupied by Dr. Sylvester Graham. 
Bridge Street has a wonderful elm which stood in front of 
the house of Hon. Isaac Chapman Bates, removed to North 
Street. The Isaac Parsons homestead of 1744 on Bridge 
Street faces the common, and stands on the farm purchased 
by Cornet Joseph Parsons in 1674. The house of Governor 
Caleb Strong, one of the framers of the Constitution, was 
removed to Pleasant Street from Main. 

A picturesque house with colonial door-knockers on 
Bridge Street was built by Asahel Pomeroy for his daughter 
Hannah. The portrait of Mrs. Levi Shepherd, a daughter 
of Gen. Seth, hangs in this house, the residence of Thomas 
H. Shepherd, Esq. 

The famous Round Hill School, founded by the historian 
Bancroft and Dr. J. G. Cogswell, was housed in the early 
homes of three brothers — Levi, Colonel James, and Thomas 
Shepherd, who built the "Soapstone House" in 18 10; 
this is now one of the halls of Clarke Institute for the Deaf. 

On present College Hill was the home of Judge Charles 
A. Dewey, now "Dewey House," one of the Smith College 
dormitories; on its old site that of the Clark homestead 
of four generations stands the home of President L. Clark 
Seelye. The Hillyer Art Building and the campus of 
Smith College were comprised formerly in the home-lots 
of the Planters, Lieut. William Clark and Henry Wood- 
ward. The Administration Building is on the site of the 
Judge Samuel F. Lyman house. 

The Mary A. Burnham Classical School occupies the old 
Thomas Napier and Judge Samuel Howe houses and the 
Talbot residence, now the Capen house. 

Jenny Lind passed her honeymoon on Round Hill and 



214 Old Paths of the New England Border 

named the beautiful region below near Mill River, " Para- 
dise." Scenes of J. G. Holland's Kathrina were laid here. 
"Tarryawhile," the home of George Cable, is on Paradise 
Road, a spot of lovely seclusion, yet Elm Street with its 
incessant clatter and hum is but four hundred yards away. 
The bluffs in "Paradise," Mr. Cable writes, "suddenly sink 
to the river seventy feet below, canopied and curtained by 
a dense foliage of pine and hemlocks. . . . the sounds 
of nature alone till the air; song of birds, chirp of insects, 
the rattle of the kingfisher, the soft scamper of the chip- 
munk, the drone of the bees, or the pretty scoldings of the 
red squirrel. A boat rowed by college girls may pass in 
silence, or with a song: ... Of trees and perennial 
shrubs and vines alone, I have counted in 'Paradise' more 
than seventy species." 1 

A beautiful view of Paradise Lake with the mountain 
range beyond is obtained from the Kneeland garden with 
its border of wild-wood carpeted with marvellous ferns. 

At "Tarryawhile," Mr Cable wrote The Cavalier and 
other works. He is a moving spirit in the great and success- 
ful undertakings of the Home Culture Clubs of Northampton. 
Mr. Carnegie also has put his shoulder to this wheel of 
Progress. 

The traditional literary atmosphere has never waned 
since a pioneer wearing the graduate's magic "H. C, 1656," 
knocked at Northampton's gate. The Clark and Forbes 
libraries are great acquisitions; and Northampton is the 
home of Jeannette Lee, Ruth Huntington Sessions, and the 
Rev. George Gilbert. The Mount Tom magazine comes 
to us from the pen of Gerald Stanley Lee, and Mrs. Lee is 
one of the Contributors' Club of The Atlantic; Dr. Lyman 
Powell, Professor Joseph Johnson, and Mrs. Cochran are 

'"Paradise Woods," a sketch in Northampton, The Meadow City, 
edited by F. N. Kneeland and L. P. Bryant. 



A Literary Pilgrimage 



215 



associated with Northampton as well as the historian 
Charles D. Hazen, Miss Mary Jordan, Elizabeth Hanscom, 
and others of the Smith College Faculty. A picturesque 
literary pilgrimage is to mount to Williamsburg and follow 
the footsteps of Matthew Arnold and many another philos- 
opher to Ashfield among the hills, the summer home of 




The Students' Building, Smith College. 

Charles Eliot Norton. Charles Goodrich Whiting is our 
guide on inspired Walks In New England. 

J. G. Holland's confrere of Springfield Samuel Bowles 
moulded much of the spirit of letters in Western New 
England, his Journal being notable as closed except to 



216 Old Paths of the New England Border 

facts and honorable retort. Holland's Bay Path is a 
picture of the colonist's life at Agawam and bittersweet 
is ever kept on the grave of him who loved the rural scene 
in the Valley of Nonotuck : 

" The old red farm-house, dim and dun to-night, 

Save where the ruddy -firelight from the hearth — „" 



STOCKBRIDGE (INDIAN TOWN), 1737-9 

"Are they not sweet, 
These chimes that come to us on western air ? " 

Evening Chimes, Crowninshield. 

On the border of the Province of Massachusetts Bay there 
lies a gentle valley indented by low, wooded mountains, 
each of a contour strikingly unlike its neighbor. The river 
of this "Happy Valley" hesitates and lingers on the edge 
of that luminous, green bowl of forest and meadow, mean- 
while changes her accustomed dancing, vivacious step, and 
walks serenely in a curved path west and north across the 
lovely plain of Stockbridge, tracing a double, willow- 
fringed ox-bow, on which the birch canoe must travel five 
times as far as the horseman who rides from bridge to 
bridge. 

This Taconic-Hoosac bowl in which Stockbridge lies was 
a home of the Mohekanew or Muh-he-ka-nuk, the people 
of the continually flowing waters, who, in past unknown 
suns, ranged far northwest. Here 'mid the softer hills of 
the Green Mountain range the tribe told the hours of the 
day by mountain shadows, the sundial of the savage. 
Wnau-ti-kook is the first to become wrapped in shade as 
the sun falls below her summit. Above Rattlesnake or 
Deowkook — Hill of the Wolves — stands the north star, 
their compass of the night, whilst Orion served as their 
clock. Captain Konkapot's name for Rattlesnake Moun- 
tain was Mau-ska-fee-haunk when he indicated the north 
boundary of the tribe's lands of " Housatonack 1 — allias 

1 The territory of Housatonic, comprising parts of Stockbridge, 
Lee, and Great Barrington, Mount Washington, Egremont, and Alford, 
was conveyed to the committee appointed by the General Court, to 

217 



218 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



Westonhook" — deeded to the whites "in consideration of 
Four Hundred and Sixty Pounds, Three barrels of Sider 
and thirty quarts of Rum. " The north line of Westenhook 
patent probably ran within half a league of the enchanting 
wild-wood park on Mr. Daniel French's estate at Glendale. 




Lake Makheenac or Stockbridge Bowl: fare burned the council fires of the 

Mohekanew. 

On the banks of Lake Makheenac or the Great Pond 
(afterwards the Stockbridge Bowl of Mrs. Sigourney's 
poem) burned the council fires of the River Indians; here 
treaties were sealed, but a runner's message without belts 
of wampum was set aside as "an empty word." 



admit settlers to this region west of the Connecticut, hotly disputed 
by New York and Massachusetts. The Committee were Col. John Stod- 
dard, Capt. Henry Dwight of Northampton, Capt. Luke Hitchcock of 
Springfield, Capt. John Ashley of Westfield, Samuel Porter of Hadley, 
and Capt. Ebenezer Pomroy. 




Monument Mountain. 
219 



220 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Well-beaten trails criss-crossed Stockbridge like the 
spokes of a wheel. One twisted westward toward the ancient 
council fire of the tribe at Eswatak or Schodack (now Castle- 
ton, N. Y.) where Henry Hudson once visited the Chief 
of the Mohicans. Another trail ran to the Sugar Bush at 
Tyringham, another followed the Housatonic south past 
the "Great Wigwam" and Weatogue village in Salisbury, 
Conn., to the meadow of the Schaghticoke Indians in 
Kent. Judge Church says that the first settlers could 
accurately trace this Indian path by the apple-trees sprung 
up on its course from the seeds scattered after their repast 
on our "national fruit," as Emerson calls the apple. The 
most intimate trail of the Stockbridge tribe mounts the 
shoulder of Prospect Hill, crossing the garden of the Dr. 
Henry M. Field place with its ever bubbling spring, and 
runs on past "Windymore" (where the Williams garrison 
stood) to an Indian village on Rattlesnake. 

Hunting was good on Beartown hills, — so-called, tra- 
dition says, because a pioneer of Lee killed a bear in the 
forest depths with a knotted rope's end. A story handed 
down at Beartown is of a circuit preacher, who remarked 
after a scanty contribution: "It is as hard to convert one 
of ye Beartown sinners as it is for a shad to climb an apple- 
tree — yea, tail foremost." The river washes the fore-feet 
of the Bear at Ice Glen before it leaves Stockbridge meadows 
to leap southward toward the Great Wigwam ' ' in a place 
called Ousetonuck" (Great Barrington). On its path 
thither the river passes below the face of the sacred crag 
of Maris-nos-see-klu, 1 — the Fisher's Nest, — on whose proud 
summit no Indian treads without first casting his reverential 
tribute of a stone upon the monumental cone on its southern 
slope. 

1 According to other authorities the Indian name for Monument 
Mountain is Mas-wa-se-hi, signifying a nest standing up, as appears in the 
form of its topmost boulders. 



A Monument Mountain Romance 221 

This pile of stones on Monument is one of the mysterious 
shrines 1 of the aborigine, of whose import no Indian will 
speak. 

Many believe that it may be a memorial to that gentle 
and sorrowful maid who threw herself over the white 
precipice to assuage a despairing love, having been for- 
bidden to marry her warrior-cousin through the unchanging 
law of the forefathers. To Bryant was related by a squaw 
the romance of the Indian maid of Monument Mountain: 

"/£ was a summer morning, and they went 
To this old precipice. About the cliffs 
Lay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skins 
Of wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe 
Here made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed, 
Like worshipers of the elder time, that God 
Doth walk on the high places. 
Below her — waters resting in the embrace 
Of the wide forest. 

She gazed upon it long, and at the sight 
Of her own village peeping through the trees, 
And her own dwelling, and the calm roof 
Of him she loved. . . . She threw herself 
From the steep rock and perished." 



The wild legendary existence 



LANDMARKS: I he First Church 
(1824) Memorial Tablets. Henry 

Williams Dwight homestead, stock- f the Indians of the Housatonic 

bridge Cemetery. Indians' graves in - 101 

southwest corner; they asked to be merged into the celebrated btock- 

buried near Dr. Sergeant that they br idge Mission. The Silent fish- 
might rise with him. In the Sedg- ° 

wick lot is a tribute to the faithful ing-grounds at the double Ox-Bow 

Mumbet, the first slave given freedom « , ■, ■, 

in Massachusetts and through the —whose beauty aroused such 

1 Such commemorative heaps of stones are found always near a 
beaten trail, or a spring or stream. The cone mentioned in a deed given 
by four Indians to Stephen Van Cortland in 1682 now marks an angle 
of the boundary between Claverack and Taghanick townships, New 
York, standing within the ancient bounds of Claverack Manor. 



222 Old Paths of the New England Border 



efforts of Judge Theodore Sedgwick. 
Edwards monument. Miss Nancy 
Hoxey house, residence of Mrs. 
Thomas H. Rodman, Jr. Captain 
John Whiton house (about 1812), 
the Rectory; residence of Dr. Arthur 
Lawrence. Rectory Cottage; one 
end built without windows because 
the owner said he would not be 
indebted to his Federalist neighbor 
for light and air. Site of school- 
house in which taught Theodore 
Dwight, John Kirkland, afterwards 
President of Harvard, Dr. Joseph 
Catlin, and Ma'am Pynchon, strict 
in spelling and politeness. St. 
Paul's Church, a church of me- 
morials (key at Red Lion Inn). 
The Red Lion Inn stands on site of 
the Red Lion built by Silas Pepoon, 
1773; Plumb collection of antiques, 
illustrated pamphlet on, by Allen 
E. Treadway. Jackson Library con- 
tains Jonathan Edwards's desk. St. 
Joseph's Church. Interior orna- 
ments gift of Charles Astor Bristed 
Williams Academy, endowed by 
Cyrus Williams (Major Jared Curtis 
first preceptor followed by Jonathan 
Cutler, Mark Hopkins, Elijah Whit- 
ney, Rufus Townsend, Edward W. 
B. Canning) Laurel Hill or Little 
Hill; Sedgwick gift to Stockbridge. 
LaurelCottage built by Jahleel Wood- 
bridge. Here David Dudley Field 
entertained Hawthorne and other 
distinguished people. Burrall house, 
summer residence of Judge Byington 
Brownell. "The Nunnery," residence 
of Miss Virginia Butler, on site of 
Henry Dwight Sedgwick house. 
Rev. Josiah Brewer homestead, 
boyhood home of Chief-Justice 
Brewer, residence of Miss M. Adele 
Brewer. General William Williams 
house on road to Lenox, property of 



enthusiasm in the gentle soul of 
Dean Stanley — became their 
school-ground. 

In those days The Hill 1 and 
The Plain were the two parts 
of Stockbridge, and you might 
have stood with Missionary John 
Sergeant in the doorway of his 
Mission House on the Hill — 
already famous in Great Britain 
— and listened to a conch-shell's 
blast drowning the song of the 
bobolinks, whereby David Nau- 
nau-ka-nuk, the tithing-man, sum- 
moned Mohican and Mohawk 
chiefs and men of the Six Nations 
into the little church on the 
Plain ; hence now, from vine-clad 
bell- tower, the Children's Chimes 
chant softly to the valley that 
day is done. Presently from the 
line of wigwams on Stockbridge 
Street you perceived Indian con- 
verts appear with tools and set 
to building or planting after the 
English manner. Konkapot, com- 
missioned as Captain by Gov. 
Belcher, built and shingled his 
barn on the brook 2 named in his 



1 "The Hill," as the oldest families like to call it, has been variously- 
designated as Sergeant's Hill, Field Hill, Choate Hill, and Prospect Hill. 
The sinuosity of the Housatonic is remarkable, circling twenty-seven 
miles in going eight. 

2 Konkapot or Konk's brook crosses the Crowninshield place, in 
Stockbridge; in Great Barrington it is Muddy Brook. Tradition says 



Indian Hospitality 



223 



Charles Whitney. The Hill or Pros- 
pect Hill. Dr. Lucius Adams house, 
owned by Hon. Joseph H. Choate. 
" Sunset," residence Mrs. Henry M. 
Field. " Windymore," on site of 
Williams Garrison; here Dean Stan- 
ley and distinguished men from 
" foreign parts" entertained by Dr. 
Henry M. Field. " Clovercroft," 
residence of Mrs. Oscar Iasigi. 
" Council Grove," formerly the 
Cone estate, present summer resi- 
dence of Charles S. Mellen, Esq. 
Judge Ezekiel Bacon-Palmer house, 
residence of Mrs. J. F. Pitkin, 
boyhood home of Wm. Pitt Palmer; 
mountain spring which turned 
Judge Bacon's grist and cider mills. 
Frederick Perry homestead, property 
Mr. Edward M. Teall. Cyrus Field 
Park, old site of the First Church. 
Old Lynch house, West Stockbridge 
Road, mentioned in Life of Miss 
Sedgwick — built in 1777, was home 
of Deacon Charles Lynch: Judge 
Sedgwick suggested to Mr. Larry 
Lynch that he should call the road 
" Larry's Walk," hence the Lara- 
waug district. Ice Glen; south en- 
trance is near " Glenburnie," the 
Dr. Henry C. Haven estate. Fred- 
erick Crowninshield residence, Kon- 
kapot Brook. Luke Ashburner 



honor. The schoolmaster and 
first magistrate was the Rev. 
Timothy Woodbridge. 

The Indians in their turn 
introduced the English to the 
squash, as Ku-tu-squash, or 
Vine-Apple, and impressed the 
whites with the dignity of their 
ancient laws of hospitality. 
A Muh-he-ka-neuw who enters 
the home of a neighbor says 
nothing until he has eaten, 
and no one speaks whilst the 
squaw hastens to set forth 
food. 1 

The Stockbridge Mission was 
sought eagerly by the Iroquois 
and the astute Mohawk Chief, 
Hendrick, sent his grandson 
thither to be educated. 



that Captain Konkapot lived not far from Agrippa's little weather- 
beaten cottage on the old County Road (Goodrich Street). Agrippa, 
the colored body-servant of Kosciusko, and his wife were "characters" 
in Stockbridge. No one could make such gingerbread and root-beer as 
Black Peggy. "Grippy" was sexton; it is said that one evening when 
the church members were dilatory in arriving, Grippy opened the prayer- 
meeting himself: "O Lord, Thou knowest how I comes here and rings de 
bell and rings de bell, and Thy disciples halt by de way, paying no 'tention 
to its solemn warning sound." 

1 Other interesting customs of the ancestors of the Stockbridge tribe 
are included in Jones's History of Stockbridge, edited by E. W. B. Canning; 
Mr. Canning's sketch of the Indian Mission is included in the Berk- 
shire Historical Society Papers. The hut of Kokkewenaunaunt, "King 
Ben" occupied the site of " Cherry Cottage," the birth-place of Mark 
Hopkins. Ten years previous to his death (1781) at the age of 104, he 
resigned to " King Solomon." 

Parkman says that this tribe was in many respects the most remarkable 



The Old Mission House 



22 




The Old Mission House on the H ill. 
Built by the Commonweatlh of Massachusetts for JoJin Sergeant the 
Missio>iary. Owned by Mr. S. H. Woodward. The oldest house in 
Stockbridce. 



house (1823), residence James D, 
Hague, home of G. P. R. James for 
two years. Old County Road. 
Goodrich Street. William Goodrich 
married a daughter of Hon. Timothy 
Woodbridge. " Ox-Bow meadow," 
surveyed 1820 by Samuel Goodrich. 
David Goodrich house. Isaiah 
Byington homestead. Timothy 

Woodbridge-Baldwin homestead. 
Enoch Willard-Seymour house, res- 
idence Jonathan E. Field. Severus 
Fairman-Tracy house, birthplace of 



Great was the romantic interest 
of the Old World in the heathen 
savages " who dwelt in the midst 
of Nature." Dr. Ayscourt, Chap- 
lain to the Prince of Wales, sent 
over a Bible filled with fine 
engravings, inscribed: presented 
to Rev. John Sergeant, Missionary 



of our country. Captain Hendrick Aupaumet, their historian, was, like 
Cornplanter and Redjacket of the Six Nations, statesman and leader of his 
people. "According to the peculiar ethnology of our aborigines, 
the Delawares were the grandfathers, the Suawanees and Oneidas the 
younger brothers, the Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas 
the uncles of the Muh-he-ka-neew." 



226 Old Paths of the New England Border 



to the Stockbridge Indians, in the 
vast wilderness called New Eng- 
land. Sergeant was ordained 
Missionary with impressive cere- 
monies at Deerfield before the 
Governor, Council, and Indian 
Delegates. The occasion was 
marked by one of the famous 
ordination addresses of the Rev. 
William Williams of Hatfield, a 
cousin of the " Redeemed Cap- 
tive, " and a son of the cord- 
wayner Robert of Norwich, who 
crossed in the Rose of Yarmouth 
and settled in Roxbury. 

Nobles and poets alike con- 
tributed on the Indians' behalf, 
in gold or literature : Lord Gower, 
Charles, Landgrave of Hesse, 
Pope, Rousseau, Addison, and 
Steele. This came about after 
the audience granted by Queen 
Anne to chiefs of the Six Nations 
— the "Four Kings" — who were 
conducted to London by Colonel 
Schuyler and Ex-Governor Nich- 
olson of Maryland. After pre- 
senting their petitions to the Queen that she should send 
an army against the French, they were returned to their 
apartments in her Majesty's coach. Ballads were written in 
their honor, portraits were painted of "the Emperor of the 
Mohawks, wampum in hand," and his three royal compan- 
ions by Verelst, who "engrossed the fashion "; after their 
departure, their characters were assumed at masquerades. 



Maria Fairman, a writer for Godey's 
Magazine and Youth's Compan- 
ion. Mark Hopkins's birthplace on 
the " Cherry Farm" of Dr. Charles 
McBurney. The Golf Meadows, 
once owned by Oliver Partridge, 
afterward known as Hunt Meadows 
and Choate Golf Grounds. 

GLENDALE : House of Daniel C. 
French, James Dresser house 
(1800). " The Knoll," residence 
Richard P. Bowker. 

Interlaken or Curtisville: Curtis 
homestead. Dr. Vassall White house. 
The old hotel is now St. Helen's 
Home, for " Fresh Air Children," 
founded by the Hon. John E. 
Parsons, as a memorial to his 
daughter. 

DRIVES: Curtisville — 3 miles; Cur- 
tisville 1 by turnpike, return base West 
Stockbridge mountain. Lake Averic ) 
— 7, Fernside — 6, Glendale — 1\; 
Glendale (by Butler estate) — 3; 
Great Barrington — -\; " Highlawn" 
■ — 5. Housatonic — 4: Lake Buel — 10; 
Lake Makheenac — 3; Lee (over 
hill) — 4; Lenox — 6; Lenox by Mak- 
heenac — 7, Long Lake (by Glendale, 
Housatonic, Williamsville, return 
by Van Deusenville Monument) — 16; 
Monterey (by Monument Valley, 
Blue Hill, return by Beartown) — 18; 
Monument Mt., summit — 5, Monu- 
ment, around — to; Perry's Peak (by 
West Stockbridge and Richmond) 
— 24, Pittsfield — 12. Tyringham. 
Hop Brook Road — S; Warren's 
Woods (view Tyringham Valley) 
— 12, W. Stockbridge, by Williams 
River, Fuary's Quarries, Glendale 



Indian Chiefs before Queen Anne 



227 







I 






Addison's version of what the Indians thought in their 
turn of the Court in wigs, powder, and patches is excessively 
pertinent and amusing. The "odd observations" of King 
Sa Ga Yean Qua Rash on English manners are presented 
by The Spectator. 
"Their dress likewise 
is very barbarous, 
for they almost stran- 
gle themselves about 
the neck. 

Instead of those 
beautiful feathers 
with which we adorn 
our heads, they often 
buy up a monstrous 
brush of hair, which 
falls down 
in a large fleece . 
and are as 
proud of it as if it 
were their own 
growth. . . . The 
women look like an- 
gels, and would be 
more beautiful than 
the sun, were it not 
for little black spots 
that are apt to break 
out on their faces, 
and sometimes rise 
in very odd figures. 
. . When they 
disappear in one part of the face, they are apt to break 
out in another, insomuch that I have seen a spot upon the 
forehead in the afternoon which was upon the chin in 
the mornine. " ! 




Drawn from Life by G. Catiin 

The Mohegan, Psalm Book in hand. 

"A nobler task was theirs who strove 
to win 
The blood-stained heathen to the 

Christian fold." 
— Memorial to Francis Parkman by 
Holmes. 



The Spectator, Xo. 50. The portraits of the "Four Kings" are in 



228 Old Paths of the New England Border 

The Valley Indians' dearest foe was, first, the Dutch 
trader from across the New York border, balancing his 
saddle-bags with evil fire-water; secondly, the French, who 
sent Indian viceroys to entice their young men from an 
English alliance, by holding orgies in the Taghonic woods. 
The Stockbridge tribe proved difficult to proselyte, and 
forthwith French and Indians prudently omitted Housa- 
tonic towns in their war programme of pillage and massacre. 

REVOLUTIONARY DAYS 

At the opening of the Revolution, Stockbridge Indians 
strung anew their faithful bows, and, as minute-men, marched 
to join the camp on Cambridge Common and await orders 
from a great new chief — General Washington. On June 30, 
1776, General Washington, speaking of the arrival of the 
Caughnawaga friends and other tribes, says, " They honored 
me with a talk to-day." John Logan says: 

"But just believe me, oust for all, 
To them that treat him fair, 
The Injun mostly alluz, wuz, 
And is and will be, square. " 

The County Congress 1 met in 1774 at Stockbridge Tavern, 

the British Museum. Mezzotint copies are in the John Carter Brown 
Library. Providence. These Mohawk kings were of the race of unswerv- 
ing British alliance, whose courage was a factor in deciding the predom- 
inance of the Anglo-Saxon in America. They produced Brant and 
Tecumseh. The poet E. Pauline Johnson of "Cluefswood' is a daughter 
of the head chief of the Mohawks and his wife Emily S. Howells of 
Bristol, England. 

1 The Berkshire Convention appointed Mark Hopkins, Theodore 
Sedgwick John Brown of Pittsfield, Peter Curtis of Lanesboro, a com- 
mittee to take into consideration the acts of Parliament made for the 
purpose of collecting revenue in America. The non-consumption of 
British manufacturers League or Covenant, a crusade against the Tories, 
was drawn up by Timothy Edwards, Esq., Dr. Erastus Sergeant, Dr. 
Lemuel Barnard of Sheffield, Deacon James Easton of Pittsfield, and 
Dr. William \\ "hiting. 



Washington and our Indian Allies 229 

under the sign of the shiny Red Lion 1 with a green tail, to 
storm against all things British. Captain Solomon Wahau- 
wanwaumet or "King Solomon," chief sachem at Stock- 
bridge, journeyed to Boston by the old Bay Path to pledge 
the fealty of his tribe in an eloquent and rhythmic oration. 
In a moth-eaten hair trunk in a New York house, among 
certain other cherished papers of the color of the weather, 
belonging to the Andrews family of Farmington, Conn., is 
a document 2 which appears to be the proceedings of this 
remarkable conference at Boston. Its sentences vibrate 
with the passions and strange, picturesque customs of a 
unique seat of war, in wilds of the New World, wherein 
a hatchet expresses more than words. The white com- 
missioners speak first: 

" Uncles the Six Nations, attend. 

" At our late interview with you at place you told us that 
you took the hatchet from our hands, that you pulled up 



1 The Red Lion Inn, Stockhridge, is the lineal descendant of this 
"Stage Tavern." At the Red Lion is the Plumb collection of Colonial 
china and pewter. 

2 Inherited by Mrs. Alfred Whitman. Among the contents are a 
newspaper account of King George's coronation, printed on cotton in 
order to avoid the paper tax: a deed of the "Shuttle Meadow" at 
Farmington "in the year 9 of His Majesty's Reign," and "Polly Bissell's 
Book," being an illuminated writing-book of the dreary sentiments 
then considered proper for the edification of beautiful young ladies. 
Examples of Mistress Polly's copy: "Rural Meditations: Beauty is 
a flower that fadeth in an hour without virtue is of small estimation. " 

ALL IS VANITY. 

"The active youth a lifeless lump shall be, 
The laced lord shall leave his pageantry, 
The carcass of the King the worms shall eat, 

And all on earth is fading Vanity." 



230 Old Paths of the New England Border 

a large pine-tree, which made a great hole in the ground, 
through which you ran a current of water, in which you 
told us you flung our hatchet, covered the hole with a rock, 
and set on it the tree again in the same place. 

"Uncles, attend: possess your mind in peace. Let not 
our present declaration offend you. Uncles, we have taken 
up the hatchet to defend our rights and properties which 
are taken from us by the king, and cannot deliver it up 
and tamely see our property possessed by others. No, 
Uncles, we have taken up the hatchet with our Brothers 
and neighbors, the white people, and with them will fight 
in defence of our just possessions (etc.). 

" Uncles, this is all we have to say." 

" Brothers, the commissioners appointed by the twelve 
United Colonies, attend. We your Brothers, the Stock- 
bridge Indians, take this opportunity most heartily to thank 
you our brethren . . . for the care you have taken 
of us since we have been at this place . . . and we 
beg that you use your influence in our favor that we may 
have a minister to teach and instruct our old men, women, 
and children while our young men go to the war; and 
should a kind Providence crown our united efforts with 
success, we hope that our Brothers the Colonists will re- 
store us to the peaceable possession of all these lands of 
which we are at present so unjustly deprived ; . . . and 
be assured, Brothers, of our most entire friendship. Wher- 
ever your armies go, there we will go; you sJiall always find 
us by your side; and if providence calls us to sacrifice our 
Lives in the field of battle, we will fall where you fall, and 
lay our bones by yours. Nor shall peace ever be made be- 
tween our nation and the Red-Coats until our brothers the 
white people lead the way. 

'"This, Brothers, is all we have to say." 

" [The Reply of the Commissioners]: Brothers of the Stock- 
bridge Tribe, attend: We heartily thank you for the kind 
assurances of your unalterable attachment to us. We 



Pledge of the Stockbridge Indians 231 

assure you, Brothers, that we will use our utmost influence 
that you shall have a minister to instruct you, [etc.]. 
"This, Brothers, is all we have to say." 

To each Stockbridge Indian enlisted under Jehoiakim 
Mtohskin, selectman, the Provincial Congress at Concord 
sent a blanket, a yard of ribbon, and an address, through 
Colonel John Paterson of Lenox and Captain William 
Goodrich. 

This remarkable tribe kept faith and celebrated the 
Declaration of Independence on Laurel Hill in Stockbridge. 
Washington presented them with an ox for a barbecue, 
whereupon they buried the hatchet on the hill-slope near 
King Solomon's house, not far from the old fording-place 
crossed by the graceful Memorial bridge, 1 in an hilarious 
powwow, adding a sombre, savage postscript by scalping 
the effigy of the traitor Arnold. 

Certain of these Stockbridge warriors distinguished them- 
selves as scouts, and it must have been an extraordinary 
scene when Captain Ezra Whittlesey's dark-skinned 
company marched to their post at the "Ty" Saw Mills by 
General Gates's orders, wearing blue and red caps to distin- 
guish them from Burgoyne's Indians. 

Stockbridge "smelt powder" more than once during the 
heat of the Revolution. One peaceful Sabbath morning 
a messenger roused Deacon Timothy Edwards to say that 
the army was at Berkshire's very door, for Burgoyne had 
sent a detachment to capture Bennington's supplies. Dea- 

1 Memorial bridge was erected by a bequest of Mrs. Mary Hopkins 
Goodrich, granddaughter of Colonel Mark Hopkins and Electa Sargeant, 
the first white child born in Stockbridge. Mrs. Goodrich was the moving 
spirit of the far-famed Laurel Hill Association, the parent of Village 
Improvement Societies. Even a crumpled leaf seems a blot on the 
shining grass borders of the swept and garnished Stockbridge street 
and close-cropped exquisite hedges of this model town. 



11 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



con Edwards fired his gun in the street three times to call 
out the Stockbridge militia, who arrived too late for action, 
but Dr. Partridge aided friend and foe alike, attending the 
unfortunate English commander Colonel Baum. 

After the dramatic surrender of the battle of Saratoga 
(pictured by Colonel Trumbull in the rotunda of the Capital) , 
marking the first surprised failure of the British to cut our 
army in twain, a detachment of Burgoyne's crestfallen 
troops passed through Stockbridge en route to the seaboard, 
where transports were to receive them " whenever General 
Howe shall so order." Colonel Prentice Williams as a boy 
remembered seeing "the Hessians smoking their pipes on 
Laurel Hill." Burgoyne's Pass, over which they marched, 
is the grass-grown road which throws itself over a spur of 
Bear Mountain near "Bowlder Farm," the estate of Pro- 
fessor Henry W. Farnam of Yale. 

Beautiful Laurel Hill is a "Sedgwick Gift" to the town; 
in that delightful season of the year when every copse in 
Berkshire is veined with gold and violet, the people of 
Stockbridge assemble on the grass arena for the delectable 
feast of wit and philosophy set before them by the Laurel 
Hill Association. 

Sergeant's mission idea being somewhat after the fashion 
of modern University settlements, several white families 
volunteered to settle in Indian Town : the Ephraim Browns, 
Josiah Joneses, Woodbriclges, and — most conspicuous in 
his fortified house on The Hill — Colonel Ephraim Williams, 1 
Esq., deferred to in vexatious boundary disputes. They 
looked daily for Indians from the hostile north, and at 



1 Stephen W. Jones said that the Williams house (built in 1750) had 
clapboards 3^ feet long and 5 inches wide lasting one hundred years. 
It was subsequently occupied by Dr. Stephen West, who married a 
daughter of Col. Williams. The old "Fort " well is still under the present 
house " Windymore, " owned by Dr. Henry M. Field. 



Berkshire Garrisons 



233 








Monument to the Housatonic Indians, "the 

Friends of our Fathers." 
[TJic natural shaft is from Ice Glen] 
"It is the spot — / know it well — 
Of which our old traditions tell." 
— Indian at the Burial-place of his Fathers. 

Great Barrington and Sheffield, Conrad Burghardt's and 
Elisha Noble's houses were garrisons. The Williams house, 
an almost impregnable fortress, was planked with black 
oak and surrounded by a moat. 

Between Stockbridge and the St. Lawrence lay a sea of 
forest broken only by Fort Massachusetts and a few farms 
at Pittsfield and Lanesboro ' ; these and the one settler 
at Lenox were called into Stockbridge by mounted mes- 
sengers when the tocsin was sounded at Dutch Hoosac 



234 Old Paths of the New England Border 

on its destruction by 500 Canada Indians. Terror seized 
the upper Housatonic and Connecticut River settlers, the 
equal of which the veteran commander of the Indian 
fighting militia, Colonel Israel Williams of Hatfield, said 
he had never seen. Jonathan Edwards dipped his philo- 
sophical quill to ask aid from the province and to keep Sir 
William Pepperrell at Kittery advised of western perils, 
(amazingly far west was vStockbridge — her first newspaper 
being entitled The Western Star), and of the crucial 
moment to engage the friendship of the Six Nations. 

To light signal fires of danger on these western moun- 
tains, spread out "as thick as hasty puddin' " along New 
York's border, gallant Ephraim Williams, Jr., 1 rode in hot 
haste from Newton, and was placed in command of a line 
of frontier posts established by the Province beyond Con- 
necticut River, from above Northfield to Hoosac. In the 
Old French War Major Williams successfully defended 
Fort Massachusetts, the Night Watch of that menacing gap 
in our nor' west corner, at present Williamstown, threaded 
by the old Mohawk trail; their Eastern war-path crawled 
like a deadly rattlesnake within thirty miles of Stockbridge, 
— out from the scenes of crafty moonlit war-dances on the 
Mohawk; forded the Hudson, and stole onward toward 
Deerfield River by the "Dugway" at Pownal, and along 
Hoosac Plain east of Florida Mountain ; the finish being in 
rocky passes on Hoosac Mountain where a moccasin leaves 
no scent; regard how the trail always sheers off from the 
Hoosac River bank, because the Indians disliked wet 
ground. 

' Ordered to the front, Colonel Ephraim Williams fell on the "bloody- 
morning scout" of September 8, 1755. Dr. Thomas Williams of Deer- 
field was surgeon of his brother's regiment and attended Dieskau, the 
captured commander of the French. Dr. Williams's son, the Hon. Eph- 
raim Williams, studied law with Judge Theodore Sedgwick; his son was 
Bishop John Williams of Connecticut and President of Trinity College. 



The Mohawk Trail or " Hoosac Road " 235 

Over this fateful Indian path through Williamstown 
Valley, Mohawks stealthily hurried eastward to attack the 
Deerfield River tribe in 1662. Haughty Greylock, king of 
Saddle-back Mountain and monarch of Massachusetts, 
towers two thousand and eight feet above the trail and 
appears to quarrel with Vermont's hoary Green Hills for 
standing room. Up this same "Hoosac Road" (as Chap- 
lain Norton calls the Mohawk path) merciless French and 
Indians carried their captives northwestward to thraldom 
in Canada, after the siege of Fort Massachusetts, the most 
notable in the war except Louisburg. 

The traveller need not search the north bank of Hoosac 
River for the site of Fort Massachusetts ; as he rides between 
North Adams and Williamstown, he will perceive a lofty 
elm planted by men of Williams College as an appreciation 
of the fort's commander and their benefactor — Ephraim 
Williams ; all f ellows still pledge loyalty to the hero : 

"Oh, here's to the health of Eph Williams, 
Who founded a school in Bill-ville. " 

"And here's to old Fort Massachusetts, 
And here's to the old Mohawk trail, 
And here's to historical Pe-ri l 
Who grinds out his sorrowful tale. " 

At the head of Stockbridge affairs during these troublous 
times, Jonathan Edwards showed judgment in things martial 
as well as spiritual, for his mother, the wise Esther Stoddard 
of Northampton, left a broad and splendid inheritance to 
her eleven children. 



1 "Historical Pe-ri" refers to the historian of Williams cown, Arthur 
Latham Perry, to whom Williams men were particularly devoted. His 
son is Bliss Perry. 



236 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Dr. Edwards's letters to the Rev. John Erskine of Cul- 
ross are filled with our political problems. After General 
Braddoek's defeat he writes: 

"It is apparent that the ministry at home miss 
it verv much, in sending over British officers to have the 
command of our British forces. Let them send us arms, 
ammunition, money, and shipping: and let Xew England 
men manage the business in their own way, who alone 
understand it. . . . All the Provinces in America seem 
to be fully sensible that Xew England men are the only 
men to be employed against Canada. . . . However, 
we ought to remember that neither Xew England men 
nor any other are anything unless God be with us. " 

Jonathan Edwards, in the frontier parsonage built by 
Sergeant on The Plain, doubtless found sermonizing to the 
Indians an awkward task, and spent far more congenial 
hours on Original Sin than expostulating through his in- 
terpreter, John Wouwanonpequunount, to a people of 
"barbarous and barren tongue." Edwards's heart was 
bound up in marvellous metaphysics which he squared and 
multiplied in Stockbridge's laurel-lined forest lanes, sub- 
sequently pouring out his soul on paper in his famous 
little room, measuring scarcely a man's length, but broad 
enough to hold Freedom of the Will. The Doctor's study 1 
is marked by a sun-dial on the present Caldwell 2 estate on 
Stockbridge Street. 

The Edwardses rejoiced in living "in peace," after un- 
happy controversies which had driven them from North- 
ampton, and Dr. Edwards writes to his father at East 
Windsor, "The Indians are very much pleased with my 
family, especially with my wife" (the beautiful Sarah 

' Dr. Edwards's study-table may be seen at the Jackson Library; 
also the Indian's conch-shell antedating the church bell. " Edwards 
Hall" was for some years the Reid and Hoffman School. 

2 An unusual Whistler collection is hung in the house of John Cald- 
well, Esq. 



*^m 









Q 


a 








10 




ca 






a 


Kh 


~S 




^ 


■■* 



1 L) 



h ^J 



'„ § Q 

S J ?s 



2 ^ 



o a, 



238 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Pierpont of New Haven, great-great-granddaughter of 
Thomas Hooker). 

The daughters eked out the pastor's salary (£6, 3s. 4d. 
"lawful money," and twenty-five loads of wood from his 
white congregation, also eighty sleigh-loads of wood from the 
Indians) by embroidering and painting fans for Boston 
dames; thus Esther Edwards earned her wedding outfit, 
and the village was in a buzz of excitement when the rather 
elderly Rev. Aaron Burr arrived to carry away his youth- 
ful and lovely bride. On the Thanksgiving Day when the 
first grandchild, Aaron, was brought home there was un- 
usual festivity at the Edwards house. As a lad, Aaron 
often tarried in Stockbridge at the home of his uncle, Deacon 
Timothy Edwards. 

The fascinating and wayward blade Colonel Aaron Burr, 
who would fain conquer every feminine heart, even daring 
to coquette with Dorothy Q., after she was promised to 
John Hancock, was of a fibre unlike his grandfather's 
household. Our well-beloved Donald Mitchell has flung 
the high lights of a sweet humor across that gray homespun 
age when the rod was not spared, and domestic life ran 
by rule at the homestead on Stockbridge Street. Jonathan 
Edwards was "rigid with the Westminster Assembly's 
Shorter Catechism on every Saturday evening, never al- 
lowing his boys out of doors after nine o'clock at night: 
and if any suitor of his daughters tarried beyond that hour 
he was mildly but peremptorily informed that it was time 
to lock up the house. Among those suitors . . . was a 
Mr. Burr, who came to be President of the College of New 
Jersey at Princeton, and whose son, Aaron Burr — grand- 
son of the Doctor — had, in later days, a way of staying out — 
after nine. " l 

Dr. Stephen West, the patriot parson, was held in great 

1 American Lands and Letters by Donald G. Mitchell. Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons. 



Notable Families of Berkshire 239 

reverence. One of the good dames of his parish, being 
much frightened at passing alone at dusk the huts of Great 
Moon and Half Moon, murmured very fast under her 
breath as a talisman to protect herself from harm, "Stephen 
West — Stephen West — West — West!" [These Indian huts 
stood on the site purchased by Nathan Appleton, "Oak 
Grove," presented to Longfellow, but never occupied by 
him. Afterwards it became the estate of Charles F. South- 
mayd, Esq.] The Rev. Dr. Kirkland, who succeeded Dr. 
West, lived on the Tuckerman estate, "Ingleside Hall." 
It is said that he had a passion for the "cup that cheers," 
and was partaking out of the forbidden Revolutionary 
tea-chest, with curtains drawn, when startled by a knock. 
He sprang to hide the urn in anything but a clerical manner, 
and opened the door, only to find one of his Indians wonder- 
ing over his prolonged wait. 

Next to the minister, Deacon Timothy Edwards and 
Squire Jahleel Woodbridge were the "great men" of the 
town. At the funeral of Madame Woodbridge, Bellamy 
says in his Duke of Stockbridge, there was a notable gathering 
of the gentry: the Stoddards, Littles, and Wendells of Pitts- 
field, Colonel Ashley was there from Sheffield, Justices 
D wight and Whiting from Great Barrington, and Barker 
from Lanesboro. The carriages, some of them bearing 
coats of arms upon their panels, made a fine array ; the 
six pall-bearers were Chief-Justice Dwight, Colonel Elijah 
Williams, the founder of the iron-works on old Saw Mill 
Brook or Williams River at West Stockbridge (Queens- 
borough 1767), Captain Solomon Stoddard, commander of 
the Stockbridge militia, Oliver Wendell, and Henry W. 
Dwight, the county treasurer. 

In the days of Shays' s Rebellion the dreaded hemlock 
bough of the insurgents waved above the heads of inno- 
cent citizens, who had not rebelled openly against grinding 
taxes; even magistrates were not respected, and the mal- 



240 Old Paths of the New England Border 

contents gave Judge Sedgwick little quarter, pillaging his 
house. As a member of the old Continental Congress and a 
leader in politics his correspondence with the brothers Van 
Schaick, Ames, King, Pinekney, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 
and others, is a replica of the times. The last letter written 
by Alexander Hamilton was to him. 

The Hon. Theodore Sedgwick, Federalist, was much of 
an autocrat, yet most benevolent, possessing a tender heart, 
which he bequeathed to his daughter Catherine, the cham- 
pion of the cause of letters in early Berkshire. 

To visit the author of Hope Leslie, and the glorious coun- 
try pictured therein, literati of the Old World crossed the 
Atlantic, and the home of Miss Sedgwick l on the Housa- 
tonic became to the Massachusetts border that which Con- 
cord on the Musketaquid is to the Eastern coast. 

In her garden by the river flowing behind the homestead. 
Miss Sedgwick, the priestess of good things for all people, 
encouraged flowers and shrubs new to Berkshire, much as 
we have seen the stately Susan Coolidge bending over her 
Spring blossoms at Newport: "all these are early blooms of 
June," said Miss Woolsey, " for we like to see the shrubs in 
flower before we flit to Onteora at midsummer. " 

A characteristic little note of our early novelist is written 
to her friend Mrs. Richard Goodman at Lenox (hitherto 
unpublished) : 

" My dear Mrs. Goodman, 

" I have to-day — according to mv promise to you — 
potted three or four plants for your daughter — the pots 
are too large to be either convenient or seemly, but the 
roots had so spread in the ground that I feared to contract 

1 The mother of Catherine Maria Sedgwick was Pamela, daughter 
of Brigadier-General Joseph Dwight, the military officer of highest rank 
in western Massachusetts, who commanded the Massachusetts artillery 
before Louisburg. When trustee of the Indian schools, he married the 
lovely Mistress Abigail Williams, widow of John Sergeant, one of the 
best-known of the ante- Revolutionary women. 




^ N 



242 Old Paths of the New England Border 

them into a smaller space. I have trimmed them into 
rather a forlorn condition — they may lose the few leaves- 
they have, but I hope they will survive and look better. 
Would that we could see with the clear eye of perfect faith 
the unfolding of those clip'd lives removed beyond our 
sight! Yours aff n'y, 

" C. M. Sedgwick." 

Some ninety years ago, a humble cavalcade entered 
Stockbridge Street after a stony scramble up and down 
dale from old Haddam on the Connecticut: one lumber- 
ing wagon carried valuable luggage — priceless, indeed, as it 
turned out, for, on top of family bales and books, bobbed 
the six children of the new minister — David Dudley Field 
— enchanted like all children to be on a journey, and such 
an eventful journey! i It came to a happy end, after crossing 
Little Plain 2 (the D wight meadows), at their new home "on 
the rise." ("Linwood," the present Butler estate.) 

Here Cyrus, Henry, and Mary were born, nigh the roof- 
trees of Mark Hopkins and Miss Sedgwick, all cradled under 
the benign inspiration of the great stone face of Monument 
Mountain, whose mystic moods Hawthorne affectionately 
tallied up in the little red house on Makheenac. 

From his far-away window to the north the face Avas 

i Dr. Henry M. Field says in The Field Family book: "As my 
eldest brother and I took our morning ride on horseback over the hills 
of Stockbridge, we passed a farmer's door. . . . He had still one of 
the old wagons that had taken part in this memorable exodus. " For 
more than fifty years its tough timber frames had held together. 

2 The fine pollard willows on Little Plain were planted to absorb water 
in the spring floods, by Colonel Henry Williams Dwight. The Dwight 
homestead of 1700, "The Old Place," stands next the Indian Memorial. 
When Colonel Dwight was a member of Congress he used to travel in 
his carriage to Washington. Governor Christopher Gore's appointment of 
Henry W. Dwight, Esq., as aid-de-camp to Major-General Joseph Whiton 
is in the collection of Berkshire Historical MSS. gathered by R. Henry 
W. Dwight, Esq. 



David Dudley Field and His Sons 243 

not visible, and Monument frequently appears to him as 
a "headless sphinx," this morning wrapped in October's 
"rich Persian shawl" and again — under magnificent sun 
gleams aslant the valley mist — shining as "burnished 
copper. " Just as in Hawthorne's tale of the Great Stone 
Face of the White Hills, may there not also have been a 
prophecy concerning some noble soul born here in Stock- 
bridge vale under the influence of the wondrous Titanic 
visage of Monument? — some long- forgotten legend, so very 
old that it "had been murmured by the mountain streams, 
and whispered by the winds among the tree-tops" to the 
forefathers of the Indian inhabitants. 

It would appear that the famous Fields were much like 
other boys, in that when the parsonage caught fire several 
packs of playing-cards scattered from the good Doctor's 
desk, much to his horror and glee of the mischievous ones 
deprived of them. A barrel of sermons burned furiously 
— "they give more light to the world than if I had preached 
them," said Dr. Field. When he went to Curtisville to 
preach, he would take two of his boys into the pulpit, and 
Mrs. Field two with her; during the "lastly" and the "long 
prayer" 1 he would pray with a hand on each boy's head 
"to be sure they were there." 

Stockbridge and Williamstown are rich in gifts of the 
Fields and the world in their deeds. Indomitable Cyrus 

1 Dr. Field's "long prayer" was short by comparison with the Co- 
lonial parsons' of the Connecticut Valley; the four-hours sermon with 
its twenty-seventhlies manifested the minister's godliness and endur- 
ance, and the prayer lasted one hour, all standing. Although Stockbridge 
was born after the Blue Law period, yet her town records reveal that 
on account of Puritan discipline pretty piquant Sylvia Morgan suffered. 
She was complained of at church meeting in 1782 for associating with 
"vain, light, and airy company, and joining with them in dances and frol- 
icking and by companying with a man on Saturday night, which she 
professedly considers a holy time." (The Sabbath began at sun-setting on 
Saturday.) Sylvia bore social ostracism bravely for eight long years, 
but finally confessed her innocently wicked deeds, and was taken back 
into the fold. 



244 Old Paths of the New England Border 

devoted his all that the Old and New World might converse 
by cable. Living side by side in Gramercy Park, David 
Dudley Field and Cyrus counselled together, and to the un- 
faltering courage of the elder brother the Atlantic telegraph 
is greatly indebted, says Dr. Henry M. Field in his roman- 
tic chapters on Cyrus Field's twelve years' struggle to bridge 
the mountains beneath the Atlantic. The first through mes- 
sage was sent by England's Queen to President Buchanan, 
accomplishing one of those costly first strides in modern his- 
tory by which the United States entered the charmed circle 
of world-powers. A star has been added to the family es- 
cutcheon by Stephen D. Field, Esq. (a nephew of Cyrus 
West Field), in whose electrical workshop in Stockbridge 
wireless telegraphy first wrote her message for us in Morse 
characters on paper ribbon [1905]. 

In the little red schoolhouse, Judge Stephen J. Field 
wrestled with the three "R's", and Dr. Field preached at 
early candle-lighting in spite of driving snows. (The 
schoolhouse stands on the estate of Mrs. Bernard Hoffman, 
on the road to Interlaken.) This was the stage of The 
Smack at School, once as much quoted as Nothing to 
Wear. Wm. Pitt Palmer, the author, lived hard by on 
Prospect Hill, and this ambitious boy — with 31 cents in 
his pocket — walked to Albany that he might touch the 
hand of his hero Lafayette. 

On the hill-slope at the picturesque Perry homestead 
one discovers another charming view of Stockbridge vale: 
from the windows facing west Susan Teall Perry writes : 

"/ can see the pleasant valley 
See the mountain' s woody crest." 

Mrs. Perry recalls many a piquant quart dncurc when 
her mother entertained Charlotte Cushman on the stoop 
with caraway cookies and a glass of milk, as she lingered 




Aspiration 

Ye spell iiir, O, ye tree-tops, thrusting high 
Your darksome domes and pinnacles that pale 
The enameled vault." 

-From .4 Painter's Moods, by Frederic Crowninshield, 

245 



246 Old Paths of the New England Border 

for a chat on her way into Stockbridge from Curtisville, 
where she was staying on the Beck with place. 

And Fanny Kemble would often dash by before breakfast 
on her big black horse, or jog along on a charcoal cart, en- 
joying a lively spar with the smudgy and witty Irish driver. 
The country was quite shocked at her independent ways 
and dress, but they soon came to admire her and she was 
dubbed simply as "very peculiar." Not a whit cared she; 
Fanny Kemble dressed, as she said, "for the occasion," 
whether in bloomers to "go a-fishing" or in splendid attire 
for one of her unrivalled scenes in Macbeth's castle. She 
adored the "Happy Valley," and when far away refers 
again and again to the "dear hill-country." 

She writes to Mrs. Jameson when visiting at the Sedgwick 
homestead, in 1837: "I think the scenery and people you 
are now amongst fit to renovate a sick body and soothe a 
sore mind. Catherine Sedgwick is my best friend in this 
country, but the whole family here bestowed more kindness 
upon me than I now can sufficiently acknowledge. The 
place of their dwelling combines for me the charms of a 
great natural beauty with the associations that belong to 
the intellect and affections." 1 

Longfellow was told on a drive to Stockbridge that the 
very grasshoppers of the valley chirped "Sedgwick, Sedg- 
wick." 

Among the delightful stories of distinguished visitors at 
old Stockbridge, related by Henry Dwight Sedgwick, is one 
of Longfellow : 

"About 1840 the Misses Appleton, daughters of Mr. Nathan 
Appleton of Boston, passed the summer at Stockbridge. 

. . Mr. Longfellow, who in ICS43 married Miss Fanny 
Appleton, visited Stockbridge in his courtship. ... I 
was then a student at Harvard and was repeatedly called 

1 Records of a Later Life, by Frances Ann Kemble. Henry Holt & Co. 



Longfellow and Hawthorne 247 

on by him at recition as ' Stockbridge. ' When this first 
occurred, a titter ran through the division ; the second time 
the titter developed into a loud giggle, which led him to 
remonstrate mildly. . . . Suddenly his mistake flashed 
upon him, and he joined himself in the laugh, though with 
a little embarrassment. Many years after, in meeting him 
at Newport, I introduced myself, 'Mr. Longfellow, you 
don't remember me?' ' Yes, indeed I do,' he said. 'To 
my dying day I shall never forget calling you Stock- 
bridge.' " 1 

Of Washington Irving's visit " I recall nothing but the 
thrill of awful interest with which I saw him seated on a 
sofa in the parlor talking with Miss Sedgwick"; and the 
" small country boy" was much impressed by Macreadv's 
daily appearing in a different-colored dress-coat, black, blue, 
or claret. Others were Mrs. Martineau, the Hon. Miss Au- 
gusta Murray, Frederika Bremer, William M. Evarts, the 
genial General S. C. Armstrong. 

Hawthorne and James T. Fields were caught in a sharp 
and never-to-be-forgotten thunder-shower on Monument ; 
they had been invited by Mr. Field of Stockbridge to make 
the ascent with Dr. Holmes, Mr. Duycinck, Henry D. 
■Sedgwick, Cornelius Matthews, and Herman Melville. 

" To the north a path 
Conducted you up the narrow battlement 
Steep on the western side, shaggy and wild. " 

It was a stifling August morning and our delightful party 
of parts fled to shelter before the ominous yet refreshing 
storm-cloud. Hawthorne and Herman Melville were blown 
into so narrow a crevice that shy reserve retreated and 
perforce they became fast friends. Hitherto the sensitive 
man of letters had held aloof, although Melville's appre- 

1 " Reminiscences of Literary Berkshire," by Henry Dwight Sedgwick. 
The Century, vol. xxviii. 



248 



Old Paths of the New England Border 




The Charcoal Cart on an Old Path of Berkshire. 

ciation of the Scarlet Letter in the Literary World — edited 
by mutual friends, the Duycincks — was known to Haw- 
thorne. Three days later Hawthorne wrote to Horatio 
Bridge: "I met Melville the other day, and liked him so 
much that I have asked him to spend a few days with me." 
Melville speaks of "tumbling down in my pine-board 
chariot" from Pittsfield to see Hawthorne. 

As they crossed the valley on the return, looking back 
at that mighty height where they had felt the tumult of 
shrieking wind and thunder-bolt, the elect sympathized viv- 
idly with Bryant, that 

"// is a fearful thing 
To stand upon the beetling verge, and see 
Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall, 
Have tumbled down vast blocks. " 



Social Life — A Dinner at Mr. Field's 249 

A brilliant dinner followed at Mr. Field's, and simple 
withal, for such creative minds sought with avidity the 
Berkshire hills because "the comparatively small society 
was noted for its simple mode of living, for its intelligence, 
and its culture." Fanny Kemble from "on top" of Lenox 
Hill describes to Mrs. Jameson the good old times: "You 




Studio of Daniel Chester French, Glcndale. 
The /anions equestrian statue of Washington, presented by the "Society 
of American Women " to France, ivas created here, groups for the New 
York Custom-House, and other statues. " Newchester" the home of Mr. 
French has a superb prospect across the Housatonic valley. Its parlor is a 
copy of that in the Daniel French homestead at Chester, N. H. "Newchester " 
was earlier the Marshall Warner farm. 

know the sort of life is lived here: the absence of form, 
ceremony, or inconvenient conventionality whatever; we 
laugh and we talk, sing, play, dance, and discuss; we ride, 
drive, walk, run, scramble, and saunter, and amuse ourselves 
extremely with little materials." The frolicsome winter 



250 Old Paths of the New England Border 

party is not entirely a thing of the past. How the Sedgwick 
homestead has rung with merry shouts of old and young 
playing together in hide-and-seek from garret to cellar. 
Those were incomparable winter evenings of fun with the 
beloved host and hostess Mr. and Mrs. Charles Sedgwick, 
who delighted in the informal hospitality traditional in 
the Sedgwick family. 

Hawthorne's final note on this memorable August 4, 
1850, reads : " Afternoon, under the guidance of J. T. Headley, 
the party scrambled through the Ice-Glen." A lively and 
weird scramble indeed. If Ice-Glen and Laurel Hill had 
kept a sentimental guest-book, then ingenious visitors 
might have left us a legacy of individual impressions of 
this most curious fissure in all Berkshire, lying concealed 
between Bear and Little Mountain. Veritable moss castles 
of gnomes and elves seem the tumbled boulders in the 
twilight of the gorge: all too sunless here for lovers' tryst— 
not even golden Queen Summer succeeds in erasing the 
chill of his majesty the Frost-King's footsteps, yet by her 
commands beautiful fern-clusters line the yawning black 
rock caverns. 

"Away to the Ice-Glen, 
The night dews are falling," 

calls blithe Fanny Kemble, and inaugurates the Stock- 
bridge custom of startling the dryads of lee-Glen once a 
year by a gay invasion of humans in fantastic masquerade 
with ghostly torch. 

The first torch-light party was arranged by Dr. S. P. 
Parker for the amusement of his pupils. Dr. Parker was 
the first rector of St. Paul's, Stockbridge's beautiful Church 
of memorials, founded at the house of Dr. Caleb Hyde, now 
Laurel Cottage. 1 

1 The story of St. Paul's Church and an account of the growth of the 
church in Berkshire may be found in the anniversary sermon by Dr. 



252 Old Paths of the New England Border 

At Laurel Cottage David Dudley Field entertained Haw- 
thorne and other distinguished people visiting Stockbridge 
in that day, a hospitality which he continued later in 
his house on The Hill. His daughter Lady Musgrave of 
London sold Laurel Cottage, only on condition that two 
trees planted by Matthew Arnold during his residence 
should never be cut down. The acacia was brought from 
a tree on the grave of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1886. 

Matthew Arnold was at first very much put out with the 
climate of Berkshire, finding it first too hot, then excessively 
cold; but after his return to his beloved English hedgerows 
and nightingales he writes to his daughter: "You cannot 
think how often Stockbridge and its landscape come to my 
mind. None of the cities could attach me, not even Boston, 
but I could get fond of Stockbridge." 

From Laurel Cottage Arnold wrote to Sir Mountstuart 
Grant Duff: 

"What would I give to go in your company for 
even one mile on any of the roads out of Stockbridge! The 
trees, too, delight me. I had no notion what maples really 
were." 

Again to his sister from Stockbridge: " I see at last what 
the American autumn which they so praise is. 
Dav after day perfectly fine. ... I wish you could 
have been with us yesterday, that is, if you are nut nervous 
in a carriage, for the . . . hills are awful. But the 

Arthur Lawrence, rector at Stockbridge. St. Paul's grew out of the 
efforts of the church in (His, and Trinity Church, Lenox. The first 
building was designed by Upjohn; the present building by McKim, and 
is a memorial to Susan Ridley Sedgwick Butler by her husband Charles 
E. Butler. The baptistery is designed by St. Gaudens. The pulpit is 
Florentine; one lovely memorial window is to the son of Ambassador 
< ih iate, the clock and bell, gift of G. P. R. James, the English author, and 
Maunsell B. Field. The mission chapel of St. Paul's at South Lee — the 
Church of the Good Shepherd — was made possible through the energy of 
the Rev. Sidney Hubbell Treat. 



Autumn in Stockbridge 253 

horses are the best tempered and cleverest in the world; the 
drivers understand them perfectly. . . . We were per- 
petually stopping the carriage in the woods . . . the 
flowers are so attractive. . . . You have no notion how 
beautiful the asters are till you see them ; I remember the 
great purple one (.4. patens, I think) grows wild about Yar- 
mouth and the Isle of Wight. There is a nice youth here, 
a German called Hoffman, who is an enthusiastic botanist. 1 

The autumn of 1905 was unusually splendid in riotous 
color. That year Stockbridge saw herself in a mirror, as 
it were, in the Outdoor Studies of Frederic Crowninshield, 
who painted Stockbridge in varied moods, from the yellow- 
ing of her pollard willows to the November browns of 
pasture and hill — an historic procession of the Months from 
the Moon of Blossoms to the Moon of Snows, typical of 
all Berkshire; yet the artist set up his easel within a stone's 
throw of his own door. 

Here is the harrowed field and Monument; there rises 
Tom Ball, beyond a blue abundance of larkspur in the 
garden; of a shaggy richness is August's hedge of golden- 
rod and aster; September has stencilled a Venetian border 
of red and gold (maples) across the olive-green skirts of 
Bear Mountain ; in late September the close-cut hedge 
is smothered in fallen leaves of the sort which little Julian 
Hawthorne picked up so joyously — "Look, papa, here's 
a bunch of fire!" Most splendid is October's sentinel-tree 
in full flame at the turn of a mountain road. "If but only 
my cousins in Norway could see these views of Stockbridge, 
then they would understand what our American autumn 
really is, " said a transplanted Norwegian. 

The mirror of our Stockbridge year is complete with the 
painting Wind-Swept Snow of Walter Nettleton; Berkshire's 

1 Letters of Matthew Arnold, arranged by George W. E. Russell. 
Macmillan & Co. 



54 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



"winter veil of maiden white" in which the artist sees the 
reflection of Puritan character. 

Robert Reid is a native of Stockbridge, and one may well 
believe that his boyhood's unconscious feasts of line and 
color in mountain lanes and meadow are infused in his 
mural paintings in our Statehouse and the Library of 
Congress. 




The Children's Chimes on site of the first Church which the Indians attended. 
Erected by David Dudley Field as a memorial to his little granddaughter, 
The chimes ring every day at sunset. 



TYRINGHAM, 1739-1762 

"In the elms and maples the robins call, 
And the great black crow sails over all 
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley." 

Gilder. 

If you would visit a celestial valley in Berkshire, take 
the road out of Stockbridge to the pleasant village of 
South Lee with its artistic chapel; cross the Housatonic, and 
follow up the wild-wood mountain way toward Fernside, 
and you find yourself in old Tyringham-Township " No. 1 " 
of four elderly townships — (Tyringham, New Marlborough, 
Sandisfield, and Becket) purchased by Colonel Ephraim 
Williams and Nahum Ward of the Stockbridge Indians in 
1735 ; this in order that a proper road might be thrown across 
the Green Mountains between Westfield and Sheffield, for 
"his Majestie's subjects" who found it " utterly impossible 
to provide themselves with foreign commodities" in this 
wilderness almost impassable even on horseback, and with 
blazed trees. 

What a prospect is this! "a sight to hanker arter," as 
David Harum would say: up and down reaches a marvellous 
valley — long and narrow; the converging hills seem almost 
to swallow up the sweet meadows of the plain, through which 
Hop Brook leaps toward the Housatonic, half concealed by 
willows and cat-o'-nine-tails, the white ribbon of the Lee 
and Tyringham stage-road following through the village 
in its wake. No railroad has impertinently thrust itself 
here, and the bark of a dog with the haymakers a mile 
distant, echoes as a sharp intrusion on the imperative still- 
ness. At the smaller apex of the valley the setting sun 
casts a tender pink glow over all. 

255 



256 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Who might fancy that this rich intervale was known 
as "Bear Swamp" to the plucky ox-cart pioneers, Captain 
John Brewer, Isaac Garfield, Thomas Steadman, John 
Chadwick, Thomas Slaton, and also Deacon Orton, first to 
venture over the mountains from the "Old Center" at 
Monterey, to found a village at Hopbrook, now Tyringham 
village. Your path climbs more than 1000 feet above tide- 
water into Fernside; here on Mount Horeb, for nearly a 
century, away from the world's people, the Shakers of the 
Upper and Lower Family swayed in their peculiar religious 
dances, described by Fanny Kernble in a vivacious and 
somewhat irreverent manner. 

Enchantingly picturesque are the old roads hereabouts. 
A wild country way it is from Jerusalem to the deserted 
village of Beartown, nigh on a thousand feet up toward the 
blue. 

Into Jerusalem from the "Old Center" was cut the Royal 
Hemlock road in 1743. Through Otis and old Tyring- 
ham, now Monterey, ran the King's highway, the "great 
road" across the Hoosac from Westfield, over which 
Lord Viscount Howe travelled to Ticonderoga by way of 
Great Barrington and Albany. It is said that Lord Howe 
fell in love with the beauty of these forest-lined lakes 
and hills, and named the region Tyringham, for his favor- 
ite country seat in England. At "Old Center" the Rev. 
John Cotton 1 of Boston owned lot No. 1, on which the 
church 2 was built, and many settlers came out from The 
Bav. The first settler of Old Tyringham was Lieutenant 



1 Other proprietors of Old Tyringham were the Rev. Jonathan Town- 
send of Needham, the Rev. William Williams of Weston, and the Rev. 
Warham Williams of Waltham, who owned the Jonas Brewer lot. 

2 The first minister, Rev. Adonijah Bidwell, a Yale graduate, was 
chaplain under Sir William Pepperrell at Cape Breton. The Rev. Jo- 
seph Warren Dow preached twenty-five years. 




Squire Thomas Garfield house (1794) "Cobble Hill Farm," from the 

bridge across Hop Brook dam. Residence of De Witt C. Heath, Esq. 
17 2 57 



258 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Isaac Garfield. His silver-coin snuff-box, marked I. G. 
1793, is in possession of a descendant here. 

At the turn of the road is an embowered mill; on the 
brow of the hill, passing the Deacon Cyrus Heath 1 house of 
the odd ox-door, you draw rein to drink in a wide reach of 
upland fields, flaked with the brilliant orange of black-eyed 
Susans, extending from Cobble Hill to Sodom, where Long 
Mountain appears to meet Smith Hill, and abruptly termi- 
nates the line of pretty white farms " strung all along down 
thro' the holler." 

Nigh the "great bridge" at Hop Brook dam is the "post- 
office store" and Tyringham Library of rare-built rubble 
stone contributed by the citizens from their mountain 
farms. Just over "little bridge" is the house of Elder Hall, 
founder of the Baptist society; his mischievous son was 
found plunging his wee cosset-lamb in the brook, asserting, 
"I 'm goin' to make a Baptist of him!" Beyond are the 
Steadman saw-mill and Riverside Inn, the early Justin 
Battles [Battell] place. The old-fashioned loom is seen in 
the village weaving a "hit-or-miss rug" of rags. 

Your waking dreams are of the Austrian Tyrol, being 
attended by the tinkling of cow-bells on Cobble Hill, and 
the chattering of Hop Brook, fed by a thousand new rills 
out of the rain-cloud over night. 

Whither? — ever the traveller's interrogation in Berkshire, 
where each path has twenty rivals in charm and beauty. 

3 The Deacon Heath house, Shaker Pond, and the Arthur Cannon, 
corner are a part of 150 acres in Jerusalem owned by Mrs. Emma Andrews 
of Newport. The Slaters of the long lean-to in Jerusalem came from 
Old Rehoboth, a branch of the family who founded the first cotton-mill 
in America. 



260 Old Paths of the New England Border 



LANDMARKS— Jerusalem district: 
Fernside. once home of Shakers, 
property of John B. H Dingnell. 
Deacon Cyrus Heath house (1811). 
Sergeant Solomon Heath farm, 
Jerusalem Road Heman Sweet- 
William Heath house, residence 
Wallace Johnson; oldest house built 
before a road ran through the 
valley. Brewer house (1799) "stands 
plumb north and south. "' Solomon 
Slater homestead, residence E. H, 
Slater. Gideon Hale house (1783). 
John Hale farm (1762) residence 
Charles H. Hale; Deacon William 
Hale of Tyringham came from 
Suffield, Conn Clark-Hubbard 

house (about 1796) residence Wil- 
liam Bliss. The Elijah Garfield 
house, Crittenden, Fenn, Daniel 
Clark and Solomon Garfield-Beach 
farms (1776) included in Ashintully 
Farm, property of Robb dePeyster 
Tytus. Daniel Clark house. Old- 
Mill Farm, summer home of R C. 
Fordham. Snow-Cannon House, 
residence George Cannon. Stedman 
house, residence of Marshall W 
Stedman, built from timbers hewn 
in the forest Stedman saw-mil) 
Reference: "Tyringham Old and 
New," Old Home Week Souvenir by 
John A Scott. Tyringham by 
O C. Bidwell, in Beers's Berkshire 
County. 

MONTEREY. 

Monterey was named in honor 
of General Taylor's victory, Mexico. 
1846. Alvah Smith house, Smith 
Hill, residence of Mrs. Edward R 
Ward, near boundary of Monterey 
and Tyringham. Major Allen- 
Colonel Daniel A. Garfield house 
(1796). Morse farm, residence 
George Whitfield Morse, at the 
cross-roads. Huckleberry Hill. Dea 



To the heights of Monterey and 
Sandisfield 1 and " The Specta- 
cles," or to the famous Otis ponds? 
To romantic Becket by way of 
Goose Ponds, or by the lower 
or upper road to busy Lee, with 
its paper-mills and granite quar- 
ries, Fern Cliff, and Laurel Lake? 
Or shall it be Lake Buel and the 
homesteads of New Marlborough? 
But we'll none of these to-day, for 
Tyringham river — as Mr. Gilder 
delights to call Hop Brook — sum- 
mons you to the wild, where its 
waters "head up," the undiluted 
fastnesses of Berkshire. 

The Hop Brook highway is 
lined with pleasant farms laid 
out on "squadron lines." Near 
Camp Brook, you cross a trail 
entering the sugar-bush, a mag- 
net to Stockbridge Indians; tap- 
ping the trees, they caught the 
delectable sap in birchbark buck- 
ets, and invited Sergeant the 
missionary to his first "sugaring 
off." This historic grove of su- 
gar maples is on the Ashintully 
Farm of Robb dePeyster Tytus, 



' Sandisfield is the birthplace of president Jeremiah Atwater and 
of Colonel John Brown, distinguished in the Revolution, a prominent 
citizen of Pittsfield. His daughter Huldah— a lady of the old school 
after the pattern of Madame Dwight — married William Butler of North- 
ampton, who established the veteran Hampshire Gazette. 



The Road to Monterey 261 

con Thomas Hale farm. Amos Lang- ^e Egyptian archaeologist * wllO 

don house. Traces of the Cap- , 

tain John Brewer house, fortified bought Up five old farms Under 

in French and Indian wars seen L Mountain. Far above, the 

near Frances G. Heath residence. o > 

Rev. Adonijah Bidweii parsonage, denizens of Wild-Cat Ledge still 

residence Ehhu Harmon. Bidwell , • 1 , . . ., . . . 
homestead, "Lake Farm." Orton Shriek O nights. A piece De- 
house, property of George W. ] .» r rQad rung u a gr a i ns t 
Eggan. Parson Miner house, oldest J J x ° 
in Monterey. Luther Marcy house. the hoUSe of Daniel Clark in 
Old Thompson farm, just over 01 1 11 1 r 
Sandisfield line, now "Lost Lake SodOttl, who WaS Well knOWn for 

Farm," property of r. w. Giider. his fine mineral collection of this 
region. Muir "went wild" over the Valley's " quite won- 
derful glacial deposit." 2 

At the divide, one road takes a climb ("Steep!" said a 
Yankee stage-driver. "Steep! Chain lightning could n't 
go down it 'thout puttin' the shoe on!" ) into Monterey by 
Smith's Hill and Four Corners, passing the Colonel Daniel 
Garfield, 3 Morse, and Hale places and on to Twelve-Mile 
Pond. Here courageous Captain John Brewer, 4 who slept 

1 Mr. Tytus's Preliminary Report on the Re-excavation of the Palace 
of Amenhotep III. is a fascinating monograph with remarkable color 
plates of the ceilings of the palace. 

2 The Clark list of minerals is in Field's Berkshire County. Professor 
Benjamin K. Emerson of Amherst describes the rock formations of 
Tyringham in his " Geology of Eastern Berkshire " Bulletin, 126 and 159 
U. S. Geological Survey. 

3 Colonel Daniel Garfield was the son of Lieutenant Isaac Garfield 
of Weston and Tyringham. The first Garfield came over with Win- 
throp and possessed forty acres of the Rev. George Phillips grant at 
Watertown. Solomon Garfield of Weston, a nephew of Lieutenant 
Isaac Garfield, moved westward; his grandson Abraham was the father 
of President Garfield; when a student at Williams College, the future 
General spent a vacation in Monterey at the Colonel Daniel Garfield house. 
The visit at his Berkshire cousin's came about through Colonel Garfield's 
sister, who settled in Ohio, where her son went to school with the Presi- 
dent. President Garfield always looked back with pleasure to his years 
in Berkshire. He was starting to attend commencement at Williams- 
town when he was shot, and he was also expected at Monterey. 

4 The Rev. Josiah Brewer, missionary to the Greeks, was a native of 
Tyringham, and married Emilia, daughter of Rev. David Field. 



262 Old Paths of the New England Border 

under his ox-cart, pioneer fashion, built Tyringham's first 
saw- and grist-mills. 

The other road, on a level with Hop Brook, enters a deep 




The Mountain Path. 
Sweets of midsummer. 

cuplike vale of indescribable beauty, enhanced by the 
picturesque log house of " Old-Mill Farm" and the Steadman 
rake-mill of 1820. A cart-path beyond a pair of bars leads 
into high wood-lots. Leave this breezy pasture and plunge 
into dim and breathless forest depths, home of the crystal 



In Forest-Depths 



263 




Lake Garfield, Monterey; of old Twelve-Mile or Brewer's Pond. Renamed 
in hotior of President Garfield, July 4, 1S81. 

stream, running down over its rock-bed at the foot of a 
cliff, caverned for wolf and bear and sheer as a castle-wall. 
Under a huge boulder, mid-stream, trout play in a pool 
turned emerald under the canopy of leaves; on top, a 
marooned flower opens its heart to catch a few stray rays 
of sun. Up and up for a mile and a half all is coated with 
glistening moss, and you turn your ankle on Time's dense 
carpet of decay. Under mossed arms of fallen trees are 
hollows of long-forgotten cellars and stone walls which 
fenced the "clearing" made by the settler's axe; a bent 
sapling indicates a fox-snare. At last, amid the generous 
sunshine of an open woodland, you may pick giant blue- 
berries by the handful along Hayes's Pond in West Otis, 
the source of Hop Brook. 

The present town of Otis was granted to Old Tyringham 
as an "equivalent" for the acreage lost under Twelve-Mile 



264 Old Paths of the New England Border 

and Six-Mile Ponds (Lake Garfield and Lake Buel), being 
twelve and six miles respectively from Sheffield); it was 
called the Tyringham Equivalent. In colonial days, Otis 
was on the King's highway between Springfield and Albany ; 
they used to "slaughter a whole ox" between her two rival 
hotels; now the breezy and hospitable village possesses se- 
cluded charms, and is somewhat bereft of man, the offic- 
ers of the Episcopal church being women. Otis is famous 
for the wild beauty of unmatched fishing ponds, and 
the Farmington River, called "the Rivulet" by Governor 
Winslow's Plymouth Company. The district is almost as 
deliciously rugged as in 181 7, wdien Professor Silliman and 
Daniel Wadsw r orth, following the river road, crossed the 
Farmington sixteen times between New Hartford and its 
source: "We passed almost the whole distance [forty miles] 
betw r een a vast defile of forest, which everywhere hung 
around us in gloomy grandeur, presenting lofty trees rising 
in verdant ridges, but occasionally scorched and blackened 
by fire, even to their very tops. " 

A wagon waits at Hayes's Pond to carry you back to Tyr- 
ingham across the rough ridge of Long Mountain. The 
views are constantly superb ; from the highest elevation, 
see the blue line of the Catskills. Long ago the Battells 
or Battles and other farmers lived on Tyringham Mountain, 
later moving down into the valley. 

Captain Thomas Steadman planted here, having deserted 
his coasting-trade out of Narragansett in Rhode Island, 
hecause he did not wish his boys to be sailors; he arrived 
on horseback with "Aunt Sally" Steadman, his youngest, 
in a silk handkerchief slung around his neck. Captain 
Steadman voted for Washington for President. He lived 
to walk to Goose Ponds at 92, but was once supposed to be 
drowned in a heavy gale off Po nt Judith, when commanding 
a Narragansett Pier boat, and his cousin, a Baptist minis- 
ter on Block Island, preached his funeral sermon. 



Tyringham Mountain 



265 



On the mountain's face is the summer home of Francis 
E. Leupp, our Indian Commissioner; it would seem that 
just as the colonist built high in Lanesboro and Tyringham 
to avoid Indian trails, so does the builder of a country 
house to escape the highway's dust and to take part in the 
play of storm and sunlight. 

The "one-hoss shay" was long the sole conveyance; the 




Elephant Rock, Monterey, Lake Garfield in the background; the sandstone 
shows the effect of frost and storm. The fisherman's grain-sack is full of 
fish. 

first four-wheeler driven through town caused so much 
excitement that people were late to church. Deacon B. 
was remonstrated with, and allowed to use his carriage on 
Sunday only on condition that he should drive slow . 

Tales have been handed down of an elder who was a 
"leetle nigh" on a trade. To a would-be purchaser said he, 



266 Old Paths of the New England Border 

*' Waal, I '11 allow that you '11 be pleased to see that horse 
go up hill." The man bought the horse, soon returning. 
"The pesky critter balked at the first rise; tho't you sed 
she was a prime goer!" "Not jes' so," answered the 
elder, " I said you 'd be pleased to see her go up hill: naow 
would n 't you ? 

Expecting a customer for a cow, and wishing to keep the 




"Four Brooks Farm," of old tlie Elder Sweet place, summer residence of 
Richard Watson Gilder. 

bargain on his side, Elder C. selected the most undesirable 
cow and placed her in his best stall; the farmer was affably 
told that he might choose any from the herd except Mammy's 
pet butter cow. "Could n't part with her no ways." The 
customer got the pet cow. There is a saying in New Eng- 
land, " All deacons are good, but there 's odds in deacons." 



The Mountain Lane, Four Brooks Farm 267 

The old Elder Sweet farm, now called "Four Brooks," 
on which a Battell built his log hut, is the home of Richard 
Watson Gilder, who with Mr. Leupp and the late John R. 
Procter, president of the national Civil Service Commis- 
sion, have long been identified with village interests. These 
have drawn kindred spirits in art and letters to Tyringham. 
Cecilia Beaux painted in a studio made in one end of an 
old barn at Four Brooks The Dancing Lesson, or Dorothea 
and Francesco; Mr. Okakura Kakuso completed in Tyring- 
ham a book on Japan's extraordinary awakening; ex- 
President Cleveland and Mrs. Cleveland enjoyed visits and 
one whole season here, Mark Twain a summer at " Glencote" ; 
the place has been visited by John Burroughs, Thompson- 
Seton, Jacob Riis, Edith M. Thomas, Thomas Bailey Al- 
drich, Robert Underwood Johnson, Mary Hallock Foote, 
Anne Douglas Sedgwick, Alice Hegan Rice, Adele Aus der 
Ohe, Hamilton Mabie, and other writers. 

Stroll up the winding mountain lane of Four Brooks Farm, 
up from Willow Glen, a feathery forest of willows, half- 
concealing the shining river, up to maples, laurels, pine, 
and pastures, where flickers nest in high holes. Lean on 
the bars and listen to Mr. Gilder's prose-poem, The Night 
Pasture. No language can more happily touch the match- 
less charm of Tyringham Valley. 

"In a starry night in June, before the moon had come over 
into our valley from the high valley beyond, 

Terrace on terrace rises the farm, from meadow and winding 
river to forest of chestnut and pine; 

There by the high-road, among the embowering maples, 
nestles the ancient homestead; 

From each new point of vantage lovelier seems the valley, 
and the hill-framed sunset ever more and more moving and 
glorious; 

But when in the thunderous city I think of the mountain 



268 Old Paths of the New England Border 

farm, nothing so sweet of remembrance, — holding me as in 
a dream, — 

As the silver note of the unseen brook, and the clanging of 
the cow-bells fitfully in the dark, and the deep breathing of 
the cows 

In the night pasture." ' 

1 Poems and Inscriptions also contains "Autumn at Four Brooks 
Farm" and other poems of Tyringham. Mr. Gilder's poem on "The 
Pine " (included in Songs of Nature, edited by John Burroughs) is lumi- 
nous with the atmosphere of their literary camp among the hills. It is 
interesting to contrast a sea poem, The Tent on the Beach, inspired like- 
wise at a poetical picnic of kindred spirits on a sand spit at Old 
Hampton. Page 243, Vol. I., of Old Paths and Legends of New England. 



LENOX (YOKUNTOWN) 1739-1767 

" There is an eminence — of these our liills 
The last that parleys with the setting sun: 
We can behold it from our orchard seat; 
And when at evening we pursue our 7ualk 
Along the public way, this peak, so high 
Above us, and so distant in its height, 
Is visible, and often scans to send 
Its own deep quiet to restore out hearts." 

Wordsworth. 

Lexox, "on top of the hill," has long been a "Land of 
Heart's Desire" to one and another of the world's gifted. 
No great upheaval in war or peace has fretted the Happy 
Valley's mirror lakes, the intervals of sunny meadow, or 
superb Lenox range, crowned by dark forests and Yokun's 
Seat. 

You may, nevertheless, distinguish four marked periods 
in Lenox history: first the half-legendary reign of the Indian 
Chiefs Yokun and Ephraim ; to the second period belong the 
colonial proprietorship of the Quincys, and the 4000-acre 
grant to Ephraim Williams and those ministers who gave 
up their lands in Stockbridge to the Indian mission. These 
sold their claims, and in the middle of the century the 
settler's axe rang through the woods, lilac and syringa 
blossomed at their hearthstones; in snapping cold weather, 
oxen drew into the kitchen back-logs of such length, that 
as the sap ran it froze into an icicle at the other end. The 
patriot yeomanry of Yokuntown and Mount Ephraim, 
separated only by the lofty Lenox spur of the Taconics, 
christened their new villages after the English nobleman 
of proverbial good-will to Americans — Charles Lenox, Duke 
of Richmond, the friend of Horace Walpole. 

Scintillating years of literary proprietorship opened the 

269 



270 Old Paths of the New England Border 

third period in Lenox with the advent of the county judges 
to the shire town ; the hospitable board of Major Egleston 
— a founder of the Society of the Cincinnati — and the 
Berkshire Coffee House rang with toasts and repartee. 
In the early twenties arrived, as clerk of the courts, the 
love-compelling Charles Sedgwick — his delightful humor 
equalled that of his sister's stories — followed by his life- 
long friend the incomparable Judge Henry W. Bishop, who 
purchased the Egleston house. 1 

Miss Sedgwick could not be separated from her favorite 
brother, and left Stockbridge to occupy the "wing" of his 
Lenox house, and literary pilgrims flocked around her: 
among them Harriet Martineau and the noted Italian ex- 
iles, Confallieri and others, released from imprisonment at 
Speilberg. (Castillia spent a year in Berkshire, and after 
his emancipation became a senatore del regno. " A lovelier 
nature than his was never given to mortal man," says Mr. 
Henry Sedgwick.) 

In 1846 Mr. Samuel Gray Ward of Washington, the friend 
of Emerson, and the American representative of Baring 
Bros., took a fancy to the farms at the head of Stock- 
bridge Bowl, and built High-Wood, a forerunner of the 
summer homes at Lenox; his farm included beautiful 
"Shadow Brook," recently the estate of Anson Phelps 
Stokes, and the namesake of the favorite rivulet of the 
children of Hawthorne's Wonder Book. 

In the heat of the day at mid-summer Hawthorne used 
to gather his children and their playmates together at 
Shadow Brook, — the talking brook, where overreaching 



1 Major Egleston fought at Valley Forge and on the staff of General 
John Paterson, who built the house in 17S3. It was occupied for some 
years by Judge Samuel Dana and by Thomas Egleston, LL.D., the biog- 
rapher of General Paterson, and is standing on Monument Square. It 
was recently remodelled by Mrs. Alfred Edwards. 




Photograph by Mr. Wm. Radford 



Catherine Sedgwick. 



From a crayon portrait made by Seth Cheney in Lenox sixty years ago, and 
recently presented by his Niece, Miss Lilian Goodman, to the Sedgwick 
Library, Lenox. 

271 



272 Old Paths of the New England Border 

branches created noontide twilight; then Sweet Fern, Peri- 
winkle, Cowslip, and all the rest would beg for the story 
of brave Perseus, with his winged slippers and enchanted 
wallet, and of the mysterious friend Quicksilver who helped 
him to cut off the Gorgon's head. When the leaves over 
the brook changed to gold, "Cousin Eustace" told the 
children the story of King Midas and the Golden Touch. 
Thus, before this book of exquisite humor and simplicity 
was in the printer's hands (the only one of Hawthorne's 
without a sad page in it) his children could repeat it by 
heart. 

From Mr. Ward's house, Jenny Lind was married, and it 
was Mr. Ward who induced Hawthorne to come to Lenox 
and occupy a tiny house near Lake Makheenac just over 
the Stockbridge line; "all literary persons seem settling 
around us" writes Mrs. Hawthorne from her "little Red 
Shanty," as she calls it. 

Horatio Bridge, Hawthorne's college-mate, assisted them 
in establishing their household gods at Lenox. Mr. Bridge 
writes to his wife: 

"La Maison Rouge. 

" July iS, 1850. 
"Cara Mia . . . 

" Be it known, then, that Hawthorne occupies a house 
painted red, like some old-fashioned farm-houses you have 
seen. It is owned by Mr. Tappan, who lived in it awhile; 
but he is now at High- Wood, the beautiful place of Mr. 
Ward [Samuel Gray Ward]. . . . The view of the lake 
is lovely: I have seldom seen one so beautiful." * 

Lenox's fourth period of distinction belongs to the makers 
of modern history, the Now, all too close to be chronicled: 
a brilliant train of diplomatists, financiers, scientists, dis- 

1 Personal Recollections of Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Horatio Bridge. 
Copyright by Haq^er & Brothers. 



Lenox Registers Makers of History 273 

coverers, seeking a dolcc far niente after the exacting and 
complex winter of the city. The register books of the 
Berkshire Coffee House, Fanny Kemble's "Old Red Inn,'' 
and its successor of to-day, are classic in autographs, and 
become historical, sociological, or genealogical to the reader 
according to his penchant. 

That is a curious silver thread which links one thousand 




The Old Saw -Mill, Lenox. 



acres in the heart of Lenox to a Latin inscription at Bun- 
hill Fields, London, whereby Dorothy Q. came into landed 
possessions in the domain of Yokun, sachem. 

It happened in this wise: Judge Edmund Quincy, when 
on a mission to the English government, fell a victim to a 
direful small-pox epidemic in London, and a memorial 



274 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



was erected to him in Bunhill Fields, the resting-place of 
Bunyan, and the Puritans; the Great and General Court of 
the Province of Massachusetts Bay granted to his heirs, 
for the great loss sustained in the death of their father while 
in the agency of the province, iooo acres on the west side 
of the Housatonnuck River "between Stockbridge and a 




A Deserted Quarry, Lee in Berkshire. 

Lee is celebrated for its marble, such as is used in the newer portions of 

the National Capitol. 

township laid out to the Honble. Jacob Wendell, Esq., and 
others." (Wendell's Town or Pittsfield.) 

Wherefore in 1739 out of Northampton town rode Sur- 
veyor Timothy Dwight 1 across the wilderness trails and 
down over the bridle-path through Pontoosuck, Field of the 

1 Timothy Dwight, born in Hatfield in 1694, son of Nathaniel Dwight 
and Mehitable Partridge, was a great-grandson of Judge John Dwight of 
Dedham; his son married a daughter of Jonathan Edwards and their 
son was the first President Dwight of Yale College. 



Dorothy Q's Land-Grant in Lenox 275 

Winter Deer, to lay out the Quincy grant. The dainty maid 
of Braintree, "Damsel Dorothy, Dorothy Q.," in hanging 
"sleeves of stiff brocade," probably never saw how lovely 
an inheritance was her portion of Lenox, threaded by little 
Yokun River, its north bound marked by a great oak tree 
on the Pittsfield road, and scarcely more than a league 
from "Canoe Meadows," where her irreverent great-grand- 
son Oliver Wendell Holmes was destined to dwell "seven 
sweet summers" on the land-grant of his distinguished 
forbear Jacob Wendell, colonel of the "Ancient and 
Honorables. " 

The Quincys' north bound ran across the main road be- 
tween Lenox and Pittsfield to the foot of the west mountain 
range. Yokun Mountain has been chosen latterly as a 
picturesque background for the "Fembrook" of Thomas 
Shields Clarke; the house is Tyrolean Gothic and the lines 
of the hills are repeated in the roof lines. Mr. Clarke's 
studio is fashioned after the refectory of an ancient mon- 
astery at Ragusa, Sicily. 

The south bound of the grant to Josiah Quincy crosses 
the present estate of Mrs. Richard T. Auchmuty; there a 
house was built by his grandson Samuel Quincy (registrar 
of deeds at Lenox), the father of the beloved " Miss Debby." 
Except for the occasional transfer of a lot on the " Quincy 
Grant Line," 1 this episode of Lenox history is forgotten. 

DRIVES: Adams— 20 miles; Around We feel " marvellous Well aC- 

Lake Makheenac-^; Bashbish- quaint » with LenOX life ill the 
2-; Chatham by West Stockbridge x 

~2o; Cheshire— 16; Curtisviiie (in- middle of the eighteenth century; 

terlaken) — 4',; Dalton (Station) - ... r a 

-12; Fernside-a; Fernside return the merry enthusiasms Ot OUT 

by Lee— 10, Glendale by Stock- p ann y " 0ver her beloved HappV 

bridge return — 16; Great Barring- J 

ton by new road—/,-,- Higginson's Valley, where she would live 
- hSu^ ^ S U.' aW. crop out in letters to Mrs. 

• " The Quincy Grant Line," by Robert C. Rockwell, Springfield Re- 
publican, Oct. 11, 1897. 



276 Old Paths of the New England Border 

— 10; Lake Makheenac— 2 \; Laurel Jameson, and we have the letters 

Lake — j; Lebanon Road, by Happy » . 

Valley, return— ii; Lebanon Springs of MisS Sedgwick edited by MisS 

^.e^'ir^r^-S- Dewey, and not least the Note- 
land Farm-— 10; Lily Pond— ii; Book and letters of the Haw- 

Stockbridge, return by lake road — . . . 

13, stockbridge, return by interiaken thornes and reminiscences of 

-14: Over Bald Head, return—; LenOX daVS by lllS children,— by 
Pittsfield — 6; Pittsfield, return by J J J 

mountain road, New Lenox— 16; his college-mate Horatio Bridge, 

Richmond Hill — 0; Richmond, Bar- , . -. T 1 tit t-v 1 1 

kerviiie, Pittsfield, retum-/o. Ty- and by Mr. and Mrs. Fields, 
ringham by Lee, return by South Moreover, Hermann Melville and 

Lee — 20; Under West Mountain — 

5; Washington Mountain, by Lenox Charles Sumner and Other de- 
Furnace return by New Lenox-/.,- lightful letter- writers were among 

West Stockbridge, Wilhamsville, c> 

Housatomc, return— 22; West Moun- the elect recuperating in Berk- 

tain drive — jo; West Stockbridge , . . . -, rr,- m, £ ■,-, 

— 6; waiiamstown— 26. shire m the htties. the follow- 

ing is an unpublished memory of James Russell Lowell : 

" Elmwood, 23 May, 1875. 
"To Richard Goodman, jr., Esq., 

" Lenox, Mass. 
"My dear Mr. Goodman: 

" I know Berkshire tolerably well for one born among 
loving and placid landscapes. I once spent a summer — 
(1847, I think, at any rate it was while Hawthorne was 
there) partly in Stockbridge and partly at Mr. Palmer's, 
whose farm if I remember rightly lay within your boun- 
daries. I have spent a summer day alone on the mossy 
top of Deowgkook (pardon my phonetic spelling — being 
interpreted, it means Rattlesnake Mountain). I know 
Monument Mountain and Taghkonic well ; had a distant 
acquaintance with the Pittsfield Elm, though I can't say 
he ever returned my visits. Above all, I had the pleasure 
of knowing those two admirable persons Mr. and Mrs. 
Charles Sedgwick. My friend Ward lived at the head of 
the Lake. You see I am not altogether a barbarian." 
[Dr. Holmes spoke of the Pittsfield Elm as "sorely in need 
of a wig of green leaves. "] 

Mr. Lowell's day in solitude on Rattlesnake was prac- 



Mrs. Sedgwick's Famous School 277 

tical illustration of his thoughts of the blithe season when 
" 't is good to lie beneath a tree." 

. . . "What a day 
To sun me and do nothing! Nay, I think 
Merely to bask and ripen is sometimes 
The student's wiser business; the brain 

Will not distil the juices it lias sucked 
To the sweet substance of pellucid thought, 
Except for him who hath the secret learned 
To mix his blood with sunshine, and to take 
The winds into his pulses. " 

The accomplished Mrs. Elizabeth Dwight Sedgwick, 1 to 
whom Mr. Lowell refers, kept a famous young ladies' 
school, a "character-factory," she called it. One of her 
pupils living in New Orleans says: "The girls all adored 
Mrs. Sedgwick, she was so good to us; she was far ahead 
of her time in Greek, Latin, and Hygiene. Hawthorne 
used to bring little Una to see us, and one of her pretty 
childish phrases was, 'I don't memory that.' Fanny 
Kemble was a household word, and the girls counted as 
the great intellectual event of their lives the delineation 
of Shakespeare's men and women by the 'tragedy queen' 
(as Dr. Holmes calls her) on Mrs. Sedgwick's piazza, where 
visitors and neighbors gathered around, every one electrified 
by that wonderful voice." 

With the proceeds of a single night's reading Fanny 
Kemble gave a clock to the Church on the Hill, and planned 
one "for the poor"; finding there were no poor in Lenox 

1 Mrs. Sedgwick was a Dwight of Northampton. Her son Major- 
General William Dwight Sedgwick, killed at Antietam, was born in 
Lenox. Pupils of note at Mrs. Sedgwick's school were Charlotte Cushman, 
Harriet G. Hosmer, Maria Cummings, author of The Lauipli^Iitcr, Miss 
Jerome of New York (Lady Churchill), Lucy Marcy, daughter of the 
Governor and wife of Chief Justice Brigham. 



278 Old Paths of the New England Border 

she gave a reading for that historic institution the Lenox 
Library. 

The Library of Lenox was founded as a Social Library 
in 1797, through the Rev. John Hotehkin, a prominent 
educator. (The old Hotehkin house stands on Cliflwood 
Street, the residence of Miss Anna Shaw.) The home of 
the Charles Sedgwick Library is in the second courthouse, 
purchased and presented to the trustees by Mrs. Adeline 
E. Schermerhorn "to exhibit her affection for the beautiful 
town in which she had so long passed her summer days. " 
A fund was the gift of Ammi Robbins of New York, a 
native of Lenox. Its first treasurer and librarian was 
Elijah Brewer. The treasurer for twenty-two years was 
the Hon. Richard Goodman, and the Hon. John E. Parsons 
of New York is the president. In 1874 the trustees were 
Judge Julius Rockwell, 1 Charles Kneeland, Richard Good- 
man, Richard T. Auchmuty, and F. Augustus Schermerhorn. 
Among interesting documents preserved at the library are 
a letter of General Washington to the Hon. Jonathan 
Williams, Esq., Egleston Collection, and the non-importa- 
tion agreement signed by the Inhabitants of Lenox 1774. 

Frances Anne Kemble is still the best remembered of 
the sojourners in her beloved Happy Valley, because, like 
the adorable Dolly Madison, she never scorned the least 
of the charming amenities of life. 2 Even Hawthorne, the 

1 "The old home of Judge Julius Rockwell on Walker Street, of the 
Georgian ("Colonial") period, stands on the grant to Jonathan Edwards, 
his portion of the Minister's Grant. The house was built by Judge Walker 
for his son. An illustration of its beautiful porch is included among 
the admirable plates of The Georgian Period, edited by William Rotch 
Ware. 

2 Fanny Kemble to Lady Dacre from Berkshire, 1839: 

"You know I do not value very highly the artificial civilities which 
half-strangle half the world with a sort of floss-silk insincerity ; and the 
longer I live the more convinced I am that real tenderness to others is 
quite compatible with the truth that is due to them and one's self." 



Fanny Kemble at the Old Red Inn 279 




Kemblc Street, Lenox. 

"silent man" as he spoke of himself, delighted to see her 
come flying down on a large black horse — sometimes 
she would snatch up little Julian for a gallop; and the 
cynical Charles Sumner confessed to the piquant pleasure 
of her company on a ride to Pittsfield, and begged this 
"sympathetic, noble, and unaccommodating" woman to 
be his cicerone over the beautiful lanes and wild paths 
of Berkshire. 

As early as 1838 Fanny Kemble writes at the "Old Red 
Inn": "The village hostelry was never so graced before; 



280 Old Paths of the New England Border 

it is having a blossoming time with sweet young faces 
shining about it in every direction, looking out upon that 
prospect from the hill-top." She speaks of "making 
common cause in the eating and living way" with Mary 
and Fanny Appleton, at the hotel for a week. (Mary 
married Robert, son of Sir James Mackintosh, and the 
lamented Fanny the poet Longfellow.) 

Many stories are told of Fanny Kemble during her va- 
rious sojourns at the "Old Red Inn" and the Curtis Ho- 
tel, planted on the site of the tavern of 1773. She did 
not purchase her cottage, "The Perch," until 1850, the 
year Hawthorne arrived. 

One day Mrs. Kemble, while waiting for her "spach- 
cock" to be served, following an ante-breakfast canter over 
hill and dale, gave some directions at the desk about her 
favorite horse, and added, "You should remove your hat; 
gentlemen always remove their hats in my presence." 
"But I am not a gentleman, ma'am, I 'm a butcher." This 
pleased her so much that she was his friend forever after- 
ward. 

Mrs. Kemble annotated a volume of her poems for Mr. 
William 0. Curtis; the blanks of dedication are Idled in 
"To Mrs. St. Leger," "To Mrs. Norton," etc. A sonnet to 
her aunt Mrs. Siddons finishes: 

" Think only that I loved ye passing well 
And let my jollies slumber in the past. , ' 

The remarkable portrait of Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Kemble 
by Brings hangs in the Boston Athenaeum. The distinction 
which Mrs. Kemble's grandson Owen Wister has achieved 
in the literary world revives anew the interest in her life 
and letters. 

The old paths around Lake Makheenac, Shadow Brook, 
and Tanglewood will ever be associated with the second of 
Hawthorne's great romances — The House of Seven Gables; 



The Hawthornes Ascend Bald-Summit 281 

written during that first happy autumn at Lenox, it 
followed closely on the publication of the Scarlet Letter, 
composed during the dark, pinched days after the author's 
dismissal from the Salem custom-house. 

Possessing Hawthorne's journal and letters, one may 
follow him down through his apple-orchard to the pretty 
glen between the house and the lake. Picture " the silent 




The Apple-Orchard of the Little Red House Slopes toward Lake Makheenac. 
"I shook our summer apple-tree, and ate the golden apple which fell from it. 
Methinks these early apples, which come as a golden promise before the treas- 
ures of autumnal fruit, are always more delicious than anything that comes 
afterward." — Hawthorne. 

man" walking along the twilight road each evening to a 
neighbor's, carrying a tin pail for milk, the boy Julian 
darting across the "milky way" like a humming-bird, and 
little Una trudging after; or ascending Bald-Summit with 
the children for a frolic and a wonder-story. 
Hawthorne writes: 



282 Old Paths of the New England Border 

" Una and Julian grow apace, and so do our chickens. 
. . . There is a difficulty about these chickens, as well 
as about the old fowls. We have become so intimately 
acquainted with every individual of them that it really 
seems like cannibalism to think of eating them. What is 
to be done?" It is quite probable that fowls, flowers, 
and vegetables of the Red-house establishment were stud- 
ies for Phoebe's garden favorites in The House of Seven 
Gables. 1 

Here at last, Hawthorne came into his own in spite of 
himself. Fame knocked at the door of the little red house 
by the lake, and the author mails a jubilant letter to his 
publisher, James T. Fields: "Mrs. Kemble writes very 
good accounts from London of the reception my two ro- 
mances have met with there. She says they have made a 
greater sensation than any book since Jane Eyre; but 
probably she is a good deal too emphatic." 2 

Hawthorne, after a year, began to weary of the hills, 
which he says stereotype themselves on the brain; the se- 
cret of his discontent was a hunger for the placid slopes and 
a glimpse of the beseeching sea, his birthright. Neither 
Longfellow, Hawthorne, nor Alclrich, each born in an 
old town by the sea, could allow himself to be far 
from the salt tang, the flavor of boyish dreams; in his 
native port, at each lane's ending, is the white- winged 
fleet, whose pinions would take far man's "restless fancy." 
Aldrich voices the long, long thoughts of the youth of all 
three : 



i Henry James speaks of The House of Seven Gables as "pervaded 
with that vague hum, that indefinable echo, of the whole multitudinous 
life of man, which is the real sign of a great work of fiction." 

2 Hawthorne acquired that year the wherewithal for material com- 
forts for his family; he says: "The only sensible ends of literature 
are, first the pleasurable toil of writing, second, the gratification of one's 
family and friends, and, lastly, the solid cash." 





The Church on the Hill, Lenox. 

When the bells of Rylcstone played 

Their sabbath music — 'God us aydef" — Wordsworth. 

283 



284 Old Paths of the New England Border 

"/ leave behind me the elm-shadowed square 
And carven portals of the silent street, 
And wander on with listless, vagrant feet, 
Through seaward-leading alleys, till the air 
Smells of the sea, and straightway then the care 
Slips from my heart, and life once more is sweet." 

It is the glory of Massachusetts that her children do not 
need to step without her borders to know the charms of 
wooded crags and the boundless sea, of both old King 
Greylock and rock-bound Nahant. 

Perhaps the last pages Hawthorne wrote on the shores 
of the lake were his luminous Dedication to the Twice-Told 
Talcs (dated at Lenox, November 1, 185 1). 

In that deliriously personal and shyly characteristic 
epistle to "My Dedicatee" Horatio Bridge, Esq., U. S. N. 
(afterward Paymaster-general), Hawthorne recalls to his 
college-mate that they were once two idle lads at a country 
college, gathering blueberries, in study hours, under those 
tall academic pines, or watching great logs as they tumbled 
along the current of the Androscoggin; and says: "If any- 
body is responsible for my being at this day an author, it 
is yourself." The near-by pines at High- Wood no doubt 
recalled those at Bowdoin. These "Hawthorne Pines, " 
as beautiful as any in the world, belonged to the Sergeant 
family of Stockbridge. 

Twenty days later, in a storm of snow and sleet, Haw- 
thorne left Lenox. It must indeed have been a droll emi- 
gration; Una, Julian, and Rose waved a lingering good-bye 
to their hens with the Christian names, while five pet cats 
trailed behind the farmer's wagon as it clattered down 
the road. 

Lenox Church on the Hill-top commands eighteen miles 
of valley in middle Berkshire; its burnished tower serves 



The Woolsey and Aspinwall Estates 285 

as a beacon to strangers. Mounted therein, the imaginative 
pilgrim may fancy that he is in a lookout-tower on an 
island's wooded height, and misty mountain ranges roll- 
ing like billows of the sea on toward the horizon. 

The ground on which the church stands was a gift in 
1770 of the children of the Rev. Peter Reynolds of En- 
field, Conn. 'Neath the quaintly carven cherubim on the 
churchyard slates you trace sweet and stern old-time 
sentiments and warnings to the thoughtless. 

Close at hand rise the magnificent wooded heights of 
the old Woolsey and Aspinwall estates, now Aspinwall 
Hill, whence the horizon broadens to the Catskills. You may 
drive a dozen miles over the roads of this natural park, 
and cross Lenox range by the West Mountain road : so 
dense are the hemlocks that after dark the path is shrouded 
in an intense witching blackness, and the belated traveller 
is fain to loosen rein, and allow his horse to pick his own 
road. Deer were so plentiful on these heights that Lenox 
annually elected officers called "deer-reeves." 

For more than fifty years the Rev. Samuel Shepard 
preached in Lenox church to all the countryside. " His 
Lenox was not the Lenox of to-day. On every southern 
hillside, with protecting walls of forest to the north, stood 
ample farmhouses. The valleys were luxuriant with corn 
and waving grain. Town meeting day found the old town 
house — which is still standing and still in use — full of as fine 
a set of New England farmers as any town could boast. 
Eloquence was the rule." 1 

Familiar figures of old days in Lenox were Major Caleb 
Hyde, Samuel Collins, and Colonel Elijah Northrup (his 

1 "The Church on Lenox Hill-Top and round about It," by the Rev. 
Frederick Lynch of Pilgrim Church, New York. New England Magazine , 
October, iqoo. The house of the first minister, the Rev. Samuel Munson, 
stood on the site of the house of the Hon. John E. Parsons, "Stonover. " 



286 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



house of 1778 is still standing on Main Street, the residence 
of Henry Sedgwick), also Representatives Asher Sedgwick, 
Oliver Belden, and William O. Curtis, Senator Charles 
Mattoon, County Treasurer Joseph Tucker, James Robbins, 
and Judge William Walker who came from old Rehoboth 
in 1770, and purchased some 200 acres on Walker Hill (now 
Lanier Hill). Judge Walker always drove four horses 
or four oxen; in his house, Yokun farm, remain still the 
huge chimney, and exquisite French wall-paper laid on in 




" Yokun Farm," the Judge Walker house, as it looked 
in 1S65, when the Hon. Richard Goodman pur- 
chased it of Judge Edwards Pierre pont, minister to 
England under Grant. 

sheets, and the room in the "L," where Madame Walker 
directed her maidens at their spinning. "Yokun" has 
been the home for many years of the family of the Hon. 
Richard Goodman. 

Judge Walker raised his gambrel-roof on a most attractive 
height, whence may be observed the clear waters of three em- 
bowered ponds — Makheenac, Lily, and Laurel Lakes; the 
latter is literally a "mountain mirror." Seated beneath 
"Yokun's" honeysuckle summer-house on the west knoll. 



Encircling Laurel Lake 287 

one becomes the guest of the clouds, the cirrus trains 
which float or scud across Bald Head and Monument, to be 
finally drowned in the azure distance of Sheffield's proud 
Dome. One of the prettiest of days is when "the clouds 
are slicking across," — as the daughter of a Cape Cod fisher- 
man expressed it, her weather eye unconsciously alert 
for the smacks outside the bar. 

On the hither side of Laurel Lake is the broad sweep of 
" Erskine Park," the summer home of the inventor George 
Westinghouse ; thence you may command, set in sublime 
scenery, "Yokun" and the "Allen Winden" of Charles 
Lanier, Esq., on this Walker's or Lanier's Hill. 

"The Perch" of Fanny Kemble also overlooks Laurel 
Lake, on which she spent long days fishing for pickerel, 
"the most patient fisherman hereabouts." 

Where willows dip, by the western shore of Laurel Lake, 
the close-cropped upland rises to the terraces of " The 
Mount," the home of Edith Wharton. Simplicity is the 
accent of this estate by the author's preference, and the 
house is a copy of Beton, the seat of Lord Brownlow in 
Lincolnshire. June is full of invitations to the outdoor 
revel of bird-folk and flowers ; quite equal here to the scene 
at Elvetham in Hampshire, poetized by Peter Lylly, for 
the occasion of "The Honorable Entertainment given 
by the Queen's Majestie in Progress" by the right Honor- 
able the Earle of Hertford. Thus runs the Dittie of the 
Six Virgins' Song: 

"Now birds record new harmonie, 

And trees doe whistle melodic ! 

Now everie thing that nature breeds 

Doth clad itself in pleasant weeds. 

beauteous Queene of second Troy, 

Accept of our unfained joy ! " l 

' At Elvetham, by Peter Lylly. "To bee sold at the little Shop over 
against the great South dore of Paules. 1591." 



288 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Still another estate in the literary annals of Lenox 
touches Laurel Lake — " Wyndhurst," originally the "Blos- 
som Farm" of the Rev. John Hotchkin, principal of the 
celebrated Lenox Academy. 1 Henry Ward Beecher wrote 
Star Papers here and the height is known as " Beecher' s 
Hill." Gen. John F. Rathbone christened the place " Wynd- 
hurst"; it looks out upon bewitching October Mountain, 
and the Housatonic Valley. The ivy-mantled tower of the 
"Tudor" mansion of the present owner, John Sloane, Esq., 
commands a sweep of sixty miles across Berkshire from 
Greylock to the Dome. 

In the appropriate landscape setting of "Wyndhurst" 
yearly blooms the memory of the power and charm of 
Charles Eliot and Olmsted the elder. 

Adjoining the Beecher farm is "Coldbrooke," the estate 
of Captain John S. Barnes, who has an unusual collection 
of war- relics of 1812. Coldbrooke is the summer home of 
James Barnes the author. 

The early estate of Mrs. Dorr, a sister of Samuel Gray 
Ward, is now part of " Blantyre," the present estate of Rob- 
ert W. Paterson, Esq. His collection of paintings includes 
the signatures of Meissonier, Romney, Bridgman, Henner, 
and Lembach. The furniture is modelled after Hatfield 
House, and includes pieces from the Marquand collection. 
The old Albany post-road used to run through the Paterson 
and Barnes places. 

The Elizabethan villa built by George H. Morgan, Esq., on 
the old Ogden Hagerty estate and designed by Arthur 



1 Lenox Academy, founded in 1S03, had many distinguished associ- 
ates: Matthew Buckham, President of Vermont University, Levi Gle- 
zen and Professor H. H. Ballard, now of the Pittsfield Athenaeum, who 
founded the Agassiz Association in connection with the Lenox High 
School. Among the pupils of Lenox Academy were Mark Hopkins, 
Governor Yancy of South Carolina, the Hon. David Davis, and Anson 
Jones, president of Texas. 



290 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Rotch, well becomes its setting of magnificent old pines. 
Mrs. Hagerty held the earliest salon in Lenox, and among 
other interesting events Christine Nilsson sang in her draw- 
ing-room. Miss Hagerty became the wife of the gallant 
Robert Gould Shaw. 

The foundation of the Parish of Trinity Church was begun 
as early as 1 7 7 1 : its fine group of buildings of Berkshire 
limestone are largely memorials. The parish house is a 
gift of the Hon. John E. Parsons, the chimes, of George 
H. Morgan, Esq., the chancel, of the Kneeland family, 
the campanile tower of Mrs. R. T. Auchmuty and F. Au- 
gustus Schemerhorn. Tablets have been placed to Chester 
Alan Arthur, twenty-first President of the United States, 
Major-General Paterson, Debby Hewes Quincy, Wm. El- 
lery Sedgwick, Richard Goodman, Mrs. John E. Parsons, 
Miss Sarah Schermerhorn. 

" Sunnyridge, " the old Brevoort place, is the house of 
George Winthrop Folsom, Esq. 

Between the Lanier and Goodman estates is that of 
Cortlandt Field Bishop, Esq., the president of the Aero 
Club of America, one of the new marvels applying science 
to sport, combined with valuable explorations of earth 
and air; the earliest ascensions were made in Pittsfield. 

Through the pines of Lover's Lane one may enter 
" Wheatleigh, " overlooking Lily Pond, the estate of Henry 
H. Cook, Esq.i 

This was the farm of a determined loyalist, Gideon Smith, 
an early settler of Stockbridge, when Captain Biddle 
led out the Lenox Minute-men after Lexington. He was 
a special thorn in the side of the patriots, who had many 
Tories to deal with, and lay concealed in his own house 
for weeks. It is said he required his children to pass before 

1 A capital history of this country in detail is Lenox and the Berk- 
shire Highlands, by Rev. R. De Witt Mallary. 



Tory Glen on October Mountain 291 

a certain crevice every day, that he might see that they 
were safe and well. Discovered in harboring a British pris- 
oner-of-war, he fled to Tory Glen, a wild gorge on Octo- 
ber Mountain. Indian friends protected him from the vigi- 




" Shadows of the silver birch," "Stonover," 
at the Lenox Estate of Hon. John E. Parso)is. 

lance committee, and brought food to his rocky cavern, 
over which dashed Roaring Brook. 

An enchanting road to Tory Glen winds through New 
Lenox of rich farm lands past the Gothic St. Helena 
Chapel, set in this lovely spot at the foot of Washington 
Mountain by the Hon. John E. Parsons in memory of his 
daughter. One lingers beneath the grateful shade of road- 



292 Old Paths of the New England Border 

side elms to drink in the glorious outline of the Saddle of 
noble Greylock, across checkered fields of waving grain. 

Berkshire is famous for its rural festivals; the Ice-Glen 
Procession at Stockbridge and the Tub Parade at Lenox 
may claim first place in point of seniority over our American 
rural pageants, says Mrs. Burton Harrison. 

The Gymkhana of 1904, arranged by the Berkshire 
Hunt and held on the green arena of "Tanglewood" (the 
Tappan-Richard E. Dixey estate), was an international 
play-day at Lenox. Among those participating in the 
brilliant games on horseback were Sir Mortimer Durand, 
members of his suite, and Baron von dem Bussche. 

The gay Tub Parade has been displaced by the run of the 
Berkshire Hunt, and the horse-show at " Highlawn Farm." 
When the first frost sets the blood racing, and the fox-hounds 
and pink coats are out, snatches of an old hunting ballad 
on the Greenwood dance in the brain, as sung at West Riding 
in Yorkshire : 

' Let 's go to the greenwood,'' said Robin a Bobbin, 

'Let 's go to the greenwood,' said Richard a Robin . . ." 

The refrain runs thus in Derbyshire: 

' Let 's go a-hunting,' says Robin to Bobbin, 
'Let '5 go a-hunting,' says Richard to Robin, 
'Let 's go a-hunting,' says Little John, 
'Let 's go a-hunting,' says everyone 



PITTSFIELD (PONTOOSUCK), 1752 

" Hoiv / sometimes long for a sight of Saddle-mountain ' but then I would 
have to go down to our old Place, and I could, not make up my mind to do 
it. I should {want to) cry so as to make Sackett's Brook run over its banks 
and there would be danger of a freshet in the Housatonic. " — Dr. Holmes 
in Boston to Mrs. Kellogg, Pittsfield. 

The boundary line between New York State and Berk- 
shire, our western border-land, rests on the summits of the 
Taconics for fifty-one miles; Berkshire's bounds north and 
east touch here and there the ragged Hoosacs, whilst Pitts- 
field, the county-seat, is seated, in high state between, one 
thousand and thirteen feet above' tide- water — commanding 
a marvellous perspective of a thousand hills. Six lakes 
smile in the arena of this splendid mountain amphitheatre, 
and two little rivers join forces in the centre of the city, 
flowing to the sea as the powerful Housatonic. 

The discriminating eye of Colonel Stoddard in his diplo- 
matic journeys to Albany and Sheffield saw the luxuriant 
Pontoosuc meadows and fine water privilege of the upper 
Housatonic; therefore he chose six miles square of these 
ancient hunting-grounds of the Mohicans and Schaghti- 
cokes as the patent which he received as a grant from the 
province, in return for his "great services and sufferings 
on divers journeys to Canada and Albany," and his enter- 
tainment of the Indians at his own house. 

There was difficulty in settlement with Indian claimants 
and others, and finally, by purchases and amicable exchange 
of deeds, Colonel Stoddard and two other distinguished 
men held equal divisions of the region extending from a 
point at sixteen miles north of Captain Konkapot's house 
in Stockbridge. The others were kinsmen : one, Colonel 

293 



294 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Jacob Wendell, a rich Boston merchant, born in Albany 
and of Dutch descent, the ancestor of Wendell Phillips 
and Oliver Wendell Holmes; the other, Philip Livingston, 
Lord of Livingston Manor, the father of Philip the Signer. 
Dr. Holmes wrote Mr. Holker Abbott: "All of the present 
town of Pittsfield except iooo acres was the property of my 
great-grandfather, whose deed used to hang in the entry 
of my house. It was dated 1738." A deed in which the 
land is " farm-letten " to Colonel Stoddard reveals a curious 
mixture of Dutch and Mohican names, and confirms the 
fact of their immigration from the Hudson " over the moun- 
tain" into the Housatonic Valley. 

" To all People to whom these shall come. Greeting: Know 
Ye, That We, Jacobus Coh-qua-he-ga-meek, Mateakim, 
and Wampenum, formerly of Menanoke, or the island in 
the Hudson below Albany, now planters in the Indian 
town [Stoekbridge] on Housatonic River, have de- 
mised, granted and to-farm-letten, and by these presents 
do farm-let unto John Stoddard . . . land of six 
miles square lying . . . about sixteen miles north- 
ward of the place where Concupot [Konkapot] now dwells* 
and at the place where Unkamet's Road, so-called, that 
leads from Albany to Northampton crosseth said branch 
of the Houseaatunnick . . . executed in the eleventh 
year of our sovereign Lord, King George the II., and 
Ar.no Domini 1737, . . . in presence of Timothy 
Woodbridge," etc. 1 

The Unkamet road was the lone trail from Northampton 
trodden out a bit by the pack-horses of soldiers and 
surveyors. Unkamet was the sobriquet of a Mohican 
guide, who used to point out the Old Path-over-Yonder, that 
is, Unkamet. Pittsfield keeps the name still in street, 

1 " Preserved in the collection ot the Hon. Thos. Colt. " Smith's 
History of Pittsfield. 




Sentinel Poplars on Pittsfield's " old road to Lenox. 

to these in all Berkshire. 



There are none equal 



-95 



296 Old Paths of the New England Border 

meadow, and brook, and an important house (Fort Anson 
remodelled) at Unkamet Crossing in 1761 was that of Lieu- 
tenant Graves, where the county courts held quarterly 
terms. 

A few years pass and the pioneer ventures over the 
Hoosacs, hewing the way for his ox-team. What huge 
problems confronted courageous Berkshire pioneers! Glance 
on the map, at the contrasting halves of the Old Bay State: 
a comparatively smooth surface on the east, and the west's 
curling waves of brown, spilling over a bit into Vermont 
and New York, retreating down the Housatonic toward 
New Milford, Conn. ; marvel once again at the sand of the 
English race who chose to defy such obstacles for the love 
of land. How tenacious a love is this which impels him 
to scale these stiff passes with a household wagon, plant 
his field of corn and potatoes, and pasture a lonely cow 
or sheep on the heights. If you have been rolled about 
in the comfortable Deerfield stage of the old days across 
grim and glorious Hoosac's ledge — Hoosac to the Indians 
was the Forbidden Mountain — or climbed a thousand feet 
or more from the valley and come upon the little village 
clustered about Florida church, snow-bound above that 
"tenth wonder" — Hoosac Tunnel 1 (projected by Colonel 
Loammi Baldwin when the canal was found impossible) ; 
if you have listened to the snorting of the Albany engine 
east of Pittsfield as it strains every muscle to carry you 
over Washington Mountain on Unkamet's Path, the old 
trail east; if you have driven, or rather slid, down the 
precipitous three miles on table rocks into forest-lined, 
enchanting Tyringham Valley from Monterey's sunny pla- 
teau, your horse on his haunches most of the time, and 
your heart in your mouth — you can partially appreciate 

1 Hoosac Tunnel next to that under Mont Cenis is the largest tunnel in 
the world, being very nearly five miles long and twenty-six feet wide. 



Outlook from Washington Mountain 



297 











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EH?/ ;: 


4" ' 




■% 






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1 











Clifton Johnson 

God's Acre, a family burial-ground among the Green Mountains near the 
birthplace of Charles Dudley Warner; the lad is reading inscriptions to 
those killed in a struggle with the Indians. 

the problem of the rude forties. An Irishman at first sight 
of the hills, so luxuriant in Berkshire, exclaimed, "Bedadt 
the land is so plenty they had to sthack it ! " 

On Washington Mountain, 1 there is a veritable banquet 
of the giants, one outlook in which every glimpse of the 



1 Washington Mountain, to whose fastnesses fled the defeated insur- 
gents of Shays's Rebellion, was of old called most appropriately "Rock 
Mountain, " being of adamantine quartzite, quarried for flagstone. It 
is defiant to the chisel, and the ancient stones in " Pilgrim's Rest, "Pitts- 
field, are as if cut yesterday. In Cheshire, and Lanesboro, along the 
Hoosac range, the valuable bed of quartzite furnished silicious material 
for the once-famous glass-wori-cs at Lenox Furnace and those near Chesh- 
ire and Lanesboro. Washington Center is the birthplace of former 
Governor Edwin D. Morsran of Xew York. 



298 Old Paths of the New England Border 

valley is cut off: "On the north and on the south . 
extended the long, rolling, billowy swells of the Hoosacs. 
On the west, the ever beautiful Taeonics; and looming 
far beyond them the shadowy Catskills, looking like huge 
ghosts of perished mountains." 

"Among those misty hills," said Eustace Bright as he 
pointed out the Catskills to the children on Bald-Summit, 
"was a spot where some Dutchmen were playing an ever- 
lasting game of ninepins, and where an idle fellow, whose 
name was Rip Van Winkle, had fallen asleep, and slept 
twenty years at a stretch." The children eagerly besought 
Eustace to tell them all about this wonderful affair. But 
the student replied that the story had been told once al- 
ready, and better than it ever could be told again. 

Pittsfi eld's first settler, Solomon Deming, came over the 
hills from Wethersfield with his wife on a pillion. Others 
came from Westfield, driving their cattle before them, as 
did Thomas Hooker from Cambridge to Hartford. Na- 
thaniel Fairfield was obliged to lie in a hollow log for three 
days with savages about, whilst his companion Dan Cad- 
well returned to Westfield for provisions. After making 
a clearing in Pittsfield near Captain Bush, and building a 
log hut, he returned for his bride; it was a somewhat intri- 
cate and dangerous wedding journey through beautiful 
green woods, yet these made merry over the passing of 
each blazed tree — the guide-board at the thousand cross- 
ways of the forest— which set them on the right track. 

Bancroft describes Hooker's journey as " a wearisome 
way," but a New England journey in June has compen- 
sations. Richard Burton writes: 

" Now say, 
What month is more beauteous in beauties, in balms, 
In lyrics, in psalms, 



Pittsfield's First Settlers 299 

In gold-heart fair fancies of sunset, and calms 
Of twilight, or after-glows wondrously clear I " 

Charles Goodrich — who later owned some 6000 acres in 
Hancock, and other outlying towns, including the mineral 
springs of Lebanon, N. Y. — hewed a way for his cart and 
pair, the first in Pittsfield; at night, for fear of wild beasts, 
he tied his horses to a tree and stood guard all night munch- 
ing apples to keep awake. Often the wolves drove the 
sheep "clean up" to the stoop, and then it was discovered 
that Mrs. Judith Fairfield and Mrs. Seth Janes and other 
pioneer wives were excellent shots. 

Wendell Square was the point selected to make a centre 
by four men, Charles Goodrich, Eli Root, Elisha Jones, and 
Colonel William Williams, who agreed to build houses 
where their settling lots joined, but the ledges of rock 
prevented sinking wells. Colonel Williams built the " Long 
House" in Honasada Street, and into the "long room" 
guests were ushered through doors of twenty-six panels 
each, by a colored servant — very grand state for those days. 

The first road in Pittsfield was "chopped" through native 
forests from Park Square to the present House of Mercy 
Hospital ' and thence through Waconah Street over the old 
highway to Hancock. The first town meeting was held 
in 1 76 1 at Deacon Stephen Crofoot's on Elm Street: the se- 
lectmen elected were David Bush, William Williams, 
Josiah Wright; constable, Jacob Ensign; wardens, Solomon 
Deming and David Noble; fence- viewers, William Francis, 
Nath'l Fairfield; deer-reeves, 2 John Remington and Reuben 
Gunn. 

1 The House of Mercy Hospital, which stands near the cross-roads to 
Dalton and Lanesboro, has grown from a single cottage opened some 
thirty-three years ago by a charity bazaar, into its present splendid 
equipment. It was established and has been conducted entirely by 
women. 

2 Smith, the historian, says, in 1867, that the last deer known in Pitts- 




A " Wine-Glass " Elm. 

Savage Mt. (in the foreground) and Grcylock. The pasture is near the once 

famous Berkshire Glass-works at Lanesboro. 



300 



"Fighting Parson" Allen 



;oi 



As the Revolution approached, patriotic feeling ran high 
in Pittsfield. The Rev. Thomas Allen, the "Fighting 

Parson" who served as a private 
under Stark at Bennington, and 
whose Diary tells us the story 
of White Plains and other events, 
writes in 1775 to General Seth 
Pomeroy: "Our militia this way, 
sir, are vigorously preparing . . . 
the spirit of Liberty runs high at 
Albany ... I have exerted my- 
self to spread the same spirit in 
the King's District which has, of 
late, taken surprising effect. The 
poor Tories at Kinderhook are 
mortified and grieved, are wheel- 
The drives and walks about ing about, and begin to take 

Pittsfield in detail have been pub- . , ,, 

lished by the Berkshire Life In- qUICK-Step. 
surance Company. Also a map of 



DRIVES : North Adams — 20 miles; 
Adams, by Cheshire — 15; Becket — 
16; Barkerville — .?. Balance Rock — 
5; Coltsville — 3; Cheshire — to, Dal- 
ton, Village — 52 ; Dalton, Carsons' 
— 4\\ Greylock Mountain — 16; Han- 
cock — 8; Hinsdale — 8, Hinsdale, 
by back road — 12; Lanesborough — 
5; Lenox — 6; Lake Pontoosuc — 2\; 
Lake Onota — 2; Lake Ashley — 7; 
Lebanon Spring — 7; Lebanon Sha- 
kers — 8; Lulu Cascade — 5; New 
Lenox — 4; New Ashford — 11; Peru 
— 12; Queechy Lake — 11; Rich- 
mond — 8; Roaring Brook — 5; Savoy 
— 17; The Gulf and Wizard's Glen 
— 4; Washington — p; Weststreet, 
Stearnsville and return — 5; West 
Stockbridge by Barkerville and 
Richmond — //; Washington east 
to Station, return by Ashley Lake — 
22; Windsor — 12; Waconah Falls 
— 8; 



Berkshire County, which can be had 
free on application. Many Berk- 
shire points may be reached by 
electric cars and a short walk ad- 
ditional. These cars now extend 
from Pittsfield and Williamstown 
to Great Barrington, also to Ben- 
nington, Vt., and will shortly 
reach Canaan, Conn. 



Two leading men charged 
with disaffection in 1774, Wood- 
bridge Little, Esq., and Ma- 
jor Israel Stoddard, and other 
Tories were obliged to prepare 
hiding-places: the former in 
his old-fashioned spacious chimney, and another in the Dia- 
mond cave at the base of the Taconics. After Lexington. 
Little and Stoddard fled, and an advertisement was in- 
serted in the Hartford Courant addressed to the friends 
of liberty (by the Committee of Inspection of Pittsfield, 
Richmond, and Lenox, signed John Brown), asking them 



field were seen in 1780, when the snow-dritts were so high that the hunters 
killed them without possibility of escape from the yards the deer had 
beat out for themselves; there was a great need of buckskins that year 
for the military. Deer are frequently seen in New England of late years. 



302 Old Paths of the New England Border 

to take into custody these incurable enemies, and clap them 
into His Majesty's jails until the war be ended. These 
very men, however, soon pledged allegiance and served as 
privates inLieutenant Hubbard's detachment atBennington. 

Captain David Noble fitted out his company of minute- 
men by sacrificing several of his farms, and with the gold 
— which was quilted into his garments — proceeded to 
Philadelphia to obtain the blue and white for the " regi- 
mentals, " and engaged a breeches-maker to come to Pitts- 
field and make up the buckskins. And there were spinning 
matches and clothing bees for the army by the daughters 
of Pittsfield. 

Pittsfield was closely in touch with the capture of Ticon- 
deroga, a consultation being held by Captain Edward Mott 
and others of Connecticut with John Brown 1 and Colonel 
James Easton on the proposed action, at the tavern of 
Colonel Easton, which stood south of Park Square. Captain 
Mott and Colonel James Easton took the road over the 
mountains through Hancock and Williamstown to meet 
Colonel Ethan Allen, the commander of the expedition, and 
his Green Mountain Boys, picking up volunteers on the 
way. Major John Brown w T as appointed to announce the 
surrender of Ticonderoga of May ioth, 1775, to the Con- 
tinental Congress, and Colonel James Easton to the Pro- 
vincial Congress. 

Stark's 2 messenger from headquarters, with the news 

1 Early in '"75," John Brown, on a mission to Canada for the Provincial 
Congress, met Ethan Allen on the shores of Lake Champlain, it is believed 
by chance, which resulted in an important close to John Brown's report 
to Warren and Adams. "One thing I must mention as a professed 
secret: The Fort at Ticonderoga must be seized as soon as possible, should 
hostilities be committed by the King's troops ! The people on New 
Hampshire Grants have engaged to do this business," etc. 

1 The hero of Bennington, General John Stark, had an eventful and 
romantic history. He was at one time taken prisoner by St. Francis 



304 Old Paths of the New England Border 

that Colonel Baum, by General Burgoyne's order, had ad- 
vanced to seize Bennington's fabled supplies, reached 
Pittsfield on Thursday, August 14th, and the patriots 
hastened to the usual rallying-place, the Meeting-house; 
a company under Captain AVilliam Ford was enrolled and 
every man in hot haste got to Bennington as best he could. 
With him served the veteran Colonel Easton, Rev. .Air. 
Allen, Captains Goodrich, James Noble, and William Francis, 
Lieutenant Joseph Allen Wright, and Rufus Allen. Drs. 
Timothy Childs and Jonathan Lee went as surgeons. With 
Lieutenant Hubbard were Captains Israel Dickinson, John 
Strong, and Lieutenant Oliver Root. Colonel Svmonds, 
for whom Mount Symonds is named, marched with a full 
regiment; a detachment of the middle district was com- 
manded with spirit and skill by Lieutenant-Colonel David 
Rossiter of Richmond. 

After a powerful address, Parson Allen started out for 
the field of action in his sulky, as Mrs. Plunkett says, " wisely 
conserving his forces for combat"; the sulky was "an 
important adjunct to the pastoral work of a minister whose 
parish was six miles square." 

The English did not at all realize the concentrated power 
of the farmers. When Colonel Baum first saw, at the rear 
of his camp, small bands of men in shirt-sleeves carrying 
fowling-pieces without bayonets, he thought them to be 
country people "placing themselves where he could protect 
them," says Bancroft; it was the yeomen of Vermont, 
western Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, who gradually 
hemmed him in and gained the victory. Lafayette said 
to Napoleon, who, being accustomed to sway hundreds of 
thousands of troops, spoke slightingly of the scanty armies 

Indians and carried over several portages to Memphremagog, and at 
first treated with great severity ; subsequently he was adopted by the 
tribe and much caressed. He, however, escaped. 



Greylock and Legend of Pontoosuc 3°5 

of the American Revolution, "Sire, it was the grandest 
of causes won by skirmishes of sentinels and outposts." 

That which has been in "Wendell's Town" shall be, in 
that the human eye ever seeks unconsciously one object on 
the north horizon — the serene summit of Greylock. At 
this range of sixteen miles, peak and saddle are of heaven's 
own blue unless cloud-capped; at "Greylock's nightcap" 
the Vermont farmer shakes his head, discovering a " weather 
breeder," and fierce becomes the rage of the northern gale 
when concentrated in the Hopper and savage Notch of 
Greylock. Beneath the wild storm the Indian hears the 
voice of the Great Spirit speaking in anger on the wings of 
the wind, as it roars through the "Bellows Pipe," smoth- 
ering the more gentle voice in the rushing crystal waters of 
Money Brook. 

Where did King Greylock find his distinctive name? 
Was it acquired from the crafty Warranoke chief of the 
Gray Lock, who dwelt aforetime on the Agawam, near 
Westfield? Gray Lock took sides with the French and was 
as great a pest to this English countryside as the chimsera 
in the dark ages. Many like to attribute the name of 
Greylock, our tallest citizen of the Pilgrim Commonwealth, 
to his appearance when the hoar frost of the aging year 
creeps downward, touching each patriarchal cedar and 
the melancholy dark sweep of hemlock with silver gray. 

The Saddle of Greylock Group, formed by Mts. Williams 
and Prospect, is seen in perfection from Pittsfield's own 
South Mountain across the meadows and lake of the historic 
Van Schaack mansion-house, now the Pittsfield Country 
Club. 

Again is Greylock enchanting with green Constitution 
Hill in Lanesboro as a foreground, from the waters 
of Shoon-keek-moon-keek (Pontoosuc) Lake at twilight, 
haunted by the shadowy boatman and mysterious voices. 



306 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Swept along in the moonlight you may perhaps see a misty 
canoe or hear the plaintive death-song of Moon-keek, the 
Indian maid deprived of her devoted one, Shoon-keek, by 
the arrow of the jealous Nockawando. 

" But oft from the Indian hunter s camp 

This lover and maid so true 
Are seen, the hour of midnight damp, 
To cross the lake by a firefly lamp, 

And paddle their white canoe." 1 

Easy and of a delightful winding ascent is South Moun- 
tain, by some believed to be the " Elsie Venner mountain," 
for rumor has said that the charmer of rattlesnakes lived 
near South Mountain on the old Britton place, a house 
haunted at midnight by ghostly visitors. The key-note for 
the romance of Elsie Venner was given to Holmes by Pro- 
fessor Alonzo Clark when at Williams College. " He it was," 
said Dr. Holmes, " who told me of the woman bringing the 
rattlers to him in her apron, which story you find trans- 
ferred to my true narrative." 

On your road to view Greylock from beautiful Lake 
Onota, you climb Jubilee Hill and ride past the Dr. Timothy 
Childs homestead, and the Governor George N. Briggs 
place. Our old friend Godfrey Greylock 2 invites us to his 
favorite elevation, on Onota's southwest shore, the site of 
the old French and Indian fort. Here one may drink in 
the mountain vistas across the mirror lake whilst he relates 
the legend of the White Deer with hoofs so dainty as to 
scarce disturb the masses of blue gentian and the stately 
cardinal flower when she returned at intervals to drink 
at her clear Fountain of Pirene. One of the dwellers on 
the shore told his grandchildren that he once saw a fine 

1 Moore's ballad of " The Lake of the Dismal Swamp." 

2 Taglio)iic, The Romance and Beauty of the Hills, by Godfrey Greylock 
J. E. A. Smith). 




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H* 







The White Deer of Onota Lake 307 

white deer stooping to drink, but before he could pull the 
trigger of his rifle his dog howled and the deer faded away. 

Then he remembered the Mohicans' tale of the deer of 
spotless white who came with the opening of the cherry 
blossoms to drink at Onota. At this gentle creature no 
arrow was ever pointed, for she brought good fortune. 
"So long as the snow-white doe comes to drink at Onota, 
so long famine shall not blight the Indians' harvest, nor 
pestilence come nigh, nor foeman lay waste his country." 

When war broke out, the French sent an ambassador 
to induce the Housatonic tribe to become their allies. He 
was welcomed to their council fire and heard the tale of 
the marvellous white deer. Ambitious, like the other 
adventurers in the new West, it was his passion to carrv 
home some unique trophy of the forests: if he could but 
lay the skin of the white deer at the feet of his sovereign 
he would receive favor. Montalbert's proffered rewards 
to the red hunter who should bring home the skin of their 
sacred deer were scorned in horror. But he so debased 
the warrior Wondo with fire-water that he slew the gentle 
animal. Immediately that the prize was Montalbert's he 
set out for Montreal but never reached the French border 
alive. Then the frightened Indians sent up prayers to 
Manito to arrest punishment, but prosperity returned not, 
and the red men became less in the valley. 

Hawthorne once wished for a winged horse that he might 
take a gallop from Lenox to see his neighbor-authors: he 
would begin with Dr. Dewey at the foot of the Taconics, 
and finally alight on the hither side of Pittsfield, where sits 
Herman Melville at Arrow-Head, "shaping out the gigantic 
conception of the White Whale, while the gigantic shape 
of Greylock looms upon him from his study- window." An- 
other bound of his flying steed would bring him to the door 
of Holmes, "whom I mention last," he says, "because 



3o8 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Pegasus would certainly unseat me the next minute, and 
claim the poet as his rider." 

The Hawthorne children's pet name for Herman Melville 
was Onioo, meaning a rover, in the dialect of the Marquesas 
Islands and the title of one of his popular books of adven- 
ture in the South Seas, to which Melville shipped as a cabin- 
boy. Melville is associated less with Greylock than with his 
charming companion in philosophy — October Mountain, 
which seems to stretch out an affectionate arm toward his 
Piazza of The Piazza Talcs. Melville's grandfather — the 
patriot Major Thomas Melvill of Green Street, Boston — was 
"the last of the cocked hats" of the Revolution and to the 
youthful eye of Holmes in 183 1 his appearance had some- 
thing imposing and odd about it. 

" Not a better man was found 
By the Crier on his round. 

But the old three-cornered hat, 
And the breeches, and all that, 
Arc so queer!" 

Dr. Holmes wrote the poem of The Last Leaf with a smile 
on his lips and a tear in his eye and said, " I cannot read it 
without a sigh of tender remembrance." 1 

On Major Melvill's return from the Tea-Party held off 
Griffin's Wharf that wintry afternoon, in '73, — when 
Ok-wooker-tunkogog, pretender, Sachem of Narragansett 
and seventy of his tribe emptied 342 chests of tea in Boston 
Harbor — Madam Melvill shook out some tea from his shoes, 
but said nothing and put it carefully away in a lavender 
drawer. In after years, she was obliged to seal it against 



1 Dr. Holmes wrote in an Introduction to a later edition: "Good 
Abraham Lincoln had a great liking for the poem, and repeated it from 
memory to Governor Andrew, and the Governor himself told me. I have 
a copy of it made by the hand of Edgar Allan Poe." 



The Melvilles and Elkanah Watson 309 



relic hunters. One of the family well remembers the stately 
Madam Melvill as she sat very straight in her arm-chair by 
the window and her work on the table in front of her ; she 
wore knots of gauze ribbon under her ears attached to both 
capstrings and ruffs, in such a way that she could not move 
her head. Whenever she rose to leave the room, the courtly 
Major or one of his sons would offer her his arm to the door, 
bowing till she had passed out. The young people felt in the 




Mansion House built by Henry Van Schaack in 1785. Originally lot 55 
assigned to one of the joint proprietors of Pittsfield and substantially 
intact to-day. Now the Country Club. 

presence of Madam Melvill as did the little boy of Wethers- 
field, who, on seeing Mistress Prudence Stoddard coming, 
said, "Now I must put on my manners." 

Major Melville, Jr., who came to Pittsfield in 181 2 as com- 
mandant of the military post, was of the same fine old school, 
his courtliness a little accentuated by his twenty-one years in 
France; he lived at the Van Schaack mansion, now the home 
of the Country Club, and was President of the Berkshire 
Agricultural Society. Elkanah Watson, Major Melville's 



310 Old Paths of the New England Border 

predecessor in the Van Schaack mansion, was its first Presi- 
dent; he exhibited the first pair of Merino sheep seen in 
Berkshire under the lofty elm tree on the public square of 
Pittsfield, to which "novel and humble exhibition," Mr. 
Watson says, "many farmers and even females were 
attracted"; the first Cattle Show was held not long after, 
and the Berkshire Agricultural Society founded. On the 
Anniversary of 1849, Dr. Holmes was chairman of the com- 
mittee on the ploughing match and read The Ploughman — 

" The lord of earth. 

The hero of the plough." 

On the walls of the white panelled hall in the mansion 
built by Henry Van Schaack, are most interesting memen- 
toes. One portrait in " Broad Hall," which attracts the 
eye, is explained in Dr. Holmes's inimitable way to Judge 
Barker of Pittsfield. 

"My Dear Judge, — ■ 

"I understand this to be a portrait of Jacob Wendell, 
one of the original owners of Pittsfield. The portrait was 
owned by Wendell Phillips and I believe that when a boy 
he practised at it with bows and arrows, and damaged one 
eye. 

"Sincerely yours, 

"O. W. Holmes. 
"To James M. Barker." 

Here is framed a portrait of Henry Van Schaack 1 also 



1 Portrait presented by Dr. Henry Colt. An extract from H. Van 
Schaack's letter: "The farm I live on I bought for four hundred and 
seventy pounds York Money, . . . with a tolerable good house, 
barn and a young orchard, and a pleasant lake in sight of me. In my 
life I never lived among a more civil and obliging people. ... A 
purse of gold hung up in the public streets would be as safe from our 
inhabitants as it used to be in King Alfred's time. Beggars and vagrants 
we are strangers to, as well as to over-bearing purse-proud scoundrels." 



Mrs. Quincy Visits the Van Schaacks 311 

his encomium on the charms of Pittsfield, which he refused 
to leave, when entreated by General Schuyler and other 
patriots to return to Albany, from whence as a neutral he 
was banished. Henry Van Schaack was Postmaster at the 
time of the furor over the Stamp Act, and falling under 
suspicion of the Sons of Liberty his house was mobbed, in 
spite of previous services of the Van Schaacks to the country. 
He fought as Lieutenant under Captain Philip Schuyler in 
the Crown Point expedition, and was one who went to the 
rescue of Colonel Ephraim Williams's regiment. 

Henry Van Schaack was born in the historic mansion at 
Kinderhook, N. Y., of Colonel Cornelius Van Schaack, 
spoken of by John Jay as "the hospitable house on the 
hill." In those days Kinderhook was a most important 
point between New York and Berkshire, by the usual 
route of the Hudson. Mrs. Quincy, the wife of President 
Edward Quincy of Harvard, paid a visit in the company of 
the wife of Brigadier-General Dwight at the younger Van 
Schaack house in 1774. Madam Dwight describes Mrs. 
Quincv — then Miss Morton — as "a very young lady of 
high spirit." They left New York in a sloop and in the 
course of a week arrived at Kinderhook's Landing, thence 
overland to Kinderhook, spending several pleasant days 
at the Van Schaack house, thence on to Stockbridge. "At 
Mr. Sedgwick's [in 1792]," writes Mrs. Quincy, "I became 
acquainted with Mr. Henry Van Schaack of Pittsfield and 
visited his family at their residence. I still cherish the re- 
membrance of Mr. and Mrs. Van Schaack's hospitable 
reception of me. A startling feature of their mansion was 
the exquisite neatness of the house and everything about it. 
I had never seen the floors of entries, stairs, kitchen, etc., 

Mr. Van Schaack's farm was originally lot 55, assigned to Colonel Elisha 
Jones of Westfield and the only lot of the joint proprietors substantially 
intact to-day. Elisha Jones, Jr., was a Tory, his confiscated lands were 
sold at auction to Henry Van Schaack in 1785. 



12 Old Paths of the New England Border 

painted and although brought up among natives of 
Holland, who are proverbial for their neatness, this 
seemed to me a stroke beyond the reach of [their] art. 
Parts of the house were covered with very handsome car- 
peting, manufactured, as I understood, by the Shakers." 1 




The great pine still stands " in its solitary 
beauty and grandeur " [see letter of Dr. Holmes] 
at "Canoe Meadow" now " Holmesdale." 

The Van Schaack mansion with the charming " fish-pond " 
passed from the hands of the Melvills to the benevolent 
Mrs. Sarah Morewood and from the Morewoods to the 
Country Club of Pittsfiekl in 1900. 

i"An Old Kinderhook Mansion," by Henry Cruger Van Schaack, 
American Magazine of History, Vol. ii. 



Dr. Holmes' Farm, Canoe Meadow 313 

As you walk along the old road to Lenox you will mark in 
a wide sweep of lawn the lone and superb pine, so much loved 
by Dr. Holmes. "Canoe-Meadow" was a carrying- place of 
the Indians, and held everything that he most delighted in. 
His house * stood on the soil owned by his great-grand- 
father Jacob Wendell, Colonel of the Ancient and Honorable 
Artillery Company. Here were half a hundred acres of 
forest trees, some of them probably five hundred years old ;. 
above their foliage, the Berkshire Hills reared their heads, 
and the Housatonic River made its course in a thousand 
fantastic cuiwes though the meadows. 

Dr. Holmes entered into the life at Pittsfield with great 
zest; he was present on that distinguished occasion in 1844, 
when Dr. Mark Hopkins spoke the words, "And this is the 
Berkshire Jubilee"; Mrs. Sigourney read "The Stockbridge 
Bowl," and Mrs. Kemble and Macready 2 also took part, 
beside the "Johnsonian Dr. Todd of Pittsfield, orthodox 
minister and author," whom Longfellow in Kavanagh sends 
to slay the deer. Dr. Holmes read the lines so appropriate; 
to the Old Home Week: 

"Come back to your mother, ye children, for shame, 
Who have wandered like truants for riches or fame!" 

Then come from all parties and parts to one feast, 
Though not at the 'Astor' we '11 give you at least 
A bite at an apple, a scat on the grass 
And the best of cold — ivater — at nothing a glass." 

Dr. Holmes never lost interest in Pittsfield. He writes 



} " Holmesdale " is now the estate of Mr. William Pollock. Dr. Holmes's. 
study is a part of a building on the "Meadow Farm, " of the late Colonel 
Walter Cutting, a comrade of General Bartlett. Xot far distant is "Abbey 
Lodge," once owned by Colonel Richard Lathers of New York. 

2 "The Literary Associations of Berkshire," by James Tucker Cutler.. 
New England Magazine, 1S93. 



314 Old Paths of the New England Border 

to Mrs. Kellogg of East Street, with whom he enjoyed many 
a spar by post: "I, and we, always like to hear about 
your family, . . . the Newtons . . . and the Pomeroys. 
We depend on you for all the news about them. . . . "; 
again: "When you meet any one you think remembers me, 
tell them I am loyal to the place where I spent seven 
blessed summers of my life, and that the very stones of it 
are precious to me." 

" Boston, Jan. I, 1885. 

"A Happy New Year, my dear Mrs. Kellogg, and as many 
such as you can count until you reach a hundred; and then 
begin again, if you like the planet well enough. 

" But how good you are to send me all those excellent and 
to me most interesting photographs [of Pittsfield]. I de- 
lighted in recalling the old scenes in this way; changed as 
they are I vet seem to be carried back to the broad street — • 
East Street — down which I — we used to drive on our way 
to the ' four corners, ' and ' Canoe Meadow ' as my mother 
told me they used to call our old farm — I wonder that 
Pittsfield is not a City by this time. It seems almost too 
bad to take away the charming rural characteristics but 
such a beautiful, healthful, central situation could not 
resist its destiny and you must have a Mayor, I suppose, 
by and by, and a Common Council, and a lot of Aldermen. 
But you cannot lose the sight of Greylock or turn the course 
of the Housatonic. I can hardly believe that it is almost 
thirty years since I bade good-bye to the old place, expect- 
ing to return the next season. We passed through the gate 
under the maple which used to stand there — and is prob- 
ably in its old place — took a look at the house and the 
great pine that stood, and I hope stands, in its solitary 
beauty and grandeur, rode on past the two bridges, reached 
the station, the old one — I think you have a little better since, 
and good-bye dear old town — Well that is the way — Yes- 
terday morning I passed through Montgomery Place, and 



316 Old Paths of the New England Border 

I found workmen tearing out the inside of No. 8 where we 
lived for eighteen years. . . . Not a vestige is left to show 
where our old Cambridge house stood. We must make our- 
selves new habitations, that is all; and carry our remem- 
brances, associations, affections, all that makes home, under 
the new roof. Once more a thousand thanks for the 
photographs, and with all kind remembrances, I am — we 
both are — 

" Faithfully yours, 

"0. W. Holmes." 

Park Square, at the meeting of the main cross-roads of 
Pittsfield, has always been a place of assembly, and is sur- 
rounded by buildings of historic interest. The first which 
attracts the eye is the Berkshire Athenaeum, the gift of 
Thomas Allen of Pittsfield. It contains a Public Library 
and Museum in which is Hawthorne's desk. The Art 
Gallery includes a portrait by Copley, Mid-Ocean by Wood- 
bury, and paintings by Gilbert Stuart Newton. Here are 
held the meetings of the Berkshire Historical and Scientific 
Society, which has published many valuable papers. The 
Wednesday Morning Club, whose President is Miss Anna 
Laurens Dawes, the author, also assembles at the Athenaeum. 
Another handsome building is the .Museum of Natural 
History and Art presented to the Athenaeum by the Hon. 
Zenas Crane ; it stands on the site of the Campbell homestead, 
and was designed by a native of Pittsfield, George Campbell 
Harding. 

The most important habitant of Park Square until 1 864 was 
the Old Elm of 364 rings, which presided over all important 
events, even the reception of Lafayette. The sun-dial marking 
the spot was placed by the Peace-Party Chapter, D. A. R. 
The angel of the tree who stood between it and the axe in 
1790 was Mrs. Lucretia, wife of the Hon. John Chandler 
Williams: she resided in the beautiful colonial house still 



3iS Old Paths of the New England Border 



£> J 



standing on East Street, the Rectory of St. Stephen's Parish. 
The cause of the proposed destruction of the Pittsfield Elm 
was the erection of the second meeting-house, which the 
people of the west part wished built far into the street, 
that they might view it when coming into town. In this 
historic meeting-house, designed by Bulfinch, addresses of 
welcome were made to Lafayette; it still exists as a part of 
the Maplewood Hotel, for a time used as the gymnasium 
of the famous Maplewood Young Ladies Institute. Maple- 
wood was originally a cantonment for troops in the war of 
1 8 1 2 . The corner-stone of the present First Congregational 
Church (designed by Eidlitz and constructed of Pittsfield 
gray limestone and Barrington bluestone) was laid by Dr. 
John Todd in 1852. 

St. Stephen's Church stands on the site of the old Town- 
Hall. The Rev. William Wilberforce Newton when rector 
of the church originated the plan for a Congress of Churches. 
Next below the Williams-Newton house, the present Rectory, 
is the home of the Rt. Rev. George Worthington, Bishop of 
Nebraska, and in charge of the American churches on the 
Continent; " Bishopthorpc " stands on the site of the Pom- 
eroy homestead. The gun-shop of Lemuel Pomeroy, who 
never laid aside the ruffled shirt and knee-buckles, was on 
Gun Lane, now Pomeroy Street. Below is the old Town- 
Hall, remodelled, the residence of Mr. William G. Harding. 
The two old-fashioned country seats built by the Golds 
stand "somewhat back from the village street," the homes 
respectively of Mrs. Ensign H. Kellogg, and the late Mrs. 
Thomas F. Plunkett. 

On South Street is the Berkshire Home for Aged Women 
— a memorial to Zenas Marshall Crane — on the site of the 
Pittsfield Female Seminary. In the Ezekiel R. Colt home- 
stead 1 a reception was held to Henry Clay. The Brown 

'Residence of Mrs. Thomas Perkins Pingree and Miss Mary Colt. 



Representative Men 319 

homestead, and the West homestead, and that of Colonel 
Clapp, built by Upjohn, are standing in Pittsfield. The 
Woodbridge Little place was near Peck's Bridge. 

In an old chest in the Brattle house on "Court Hill" a 
few years ago was unearthed a rawhide wallet containing 
papers throwing light on what has hitherto been regarded 
as an absurd tradition or mysterious fact. It seems by 
these yellow documents that, in 18 19, John Brattle was given 
the power of attorney to go to a certain house in a town in 
the north of France, where, on Casapom Street, he would 
discover "in N. 47 in a cellar kitchen a vault containing 
casks of money " Locked with a strong Lock and the Key 
placed behind a Loos Brick over the Dore." The sequel is 
wanting, for no record has appeared as to whether he was 
successful in this quest on which he went in 1820, as shown 
by his passport signed by the Mayor of Havre. 

Dr. J. G. Holland was once a student at the old Berkshire 
Medical College. Pittsfield is the home of William Stearns 
Davis, the novelist, and of Harlan Hoge Ballard. Miss 
Anna L. Dawes (founder of the Children's Park) is devoted 
to letters, as was her eminent father the Hon. Henry Laurens 
Dawes, one of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention 
in 1853, and the successor of Charles Sumner in the Senate. 
Mrs. Harriett M. Plunkett dedicated her timely and 
witty pioneer book, Women, Plumbers, and Doctors, "To 
Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, the Apostle of Sanitation in 
America." When the Hon. Thomas F. Plunkett intro- 

Ezekiel Colt was the first Cashier of the Agricultural Bank, inaugurated 
in 18 1 8, at Colen's Coffee-House. Even its old-style bank check was 
adapted to an agricultural district, engraved with oxen and a plough. A 
list of its Presidents includes representative men of their generation, 
largely with homesteads standing in Pittsfield: Thomas Gold, Henry C. 
Brown, Edward A. Newton, Henry Shaw, Nathan Willis, George W. 
Campbell, Thomas F. Plunkett, Ensign H. Kellogg, John R. Warriner, 
James L. Warriner, W. Murray Crane, Irving Dwight Ferry. 



32o Old Paths of the New England Border 




The William Brattle homestead built about 1754, "Court Hill," Pittsfield, 
residence of General James Brattle Burbank; thence Lieutenant William 
Brattle went to Ticonderoga, Lexington, and Saratoga; Sackctt's and 
Brattle brooks cross Brattle meadows. 

duced a bill for a State Board of Health, the enthusiastic 
agitation of Dr. Bowditch aided in carrying it through. 
By the efforts of Lieutenant-Governor Plunkett, Pittsfield 
became the shire town. The house of "The Old Clock on 
the Stairs" was purchased by Mr. Plunkett of Nathan 
Appleton, but the clock was carried to the Appleton home 
in Boston; the old-fashioned country-seat, however, where 



Longfellow in Pittsfield 321 

Longfellow found "Free-hearted Hospitality," stands to- 
day, as then, except for a French roof. Longfellow wrote 
this poem when he was revisiting with his wife — the queenly 
Frances Elizabeth Appleton — the home of her grand- 
father Mr. Thomas Gold. Their wedding-journey was to 
Pittsfield ; on the way they visited the Springfield armory, 
offspring of that to which Washington refers in his Diary; 
Mrs. Longfellow compared the rows upon rows of arms 
to the pipes of an organ, thus inspiring the lines on The 
Arsenal at Springfield. 

" Wendell Hall" was the home of General William Francis 
Bartlett, whose statue by French stands in the Memorial 
Hall of the State House. At the unveiling by his grandson 
James Dwight Francis, the tribute "to the advocate of 
peace" by General Morris Schaff was worthy both of the 
hero and the orator. General Henry S. Briggs and Colonel 
Henry H. Richardson also are claimed by Pittsfield. The 
history and traditions of Pittsfield and Berkshire have 
been preserved by J. E. A. Smith (Godfrey Greylock) and 
Clark W. Bryan. 

DALTON 

Dalton, on the east branch of the Housatonic, and the 
encircling region is most picturesque; it is ever up, up, up, 
to the well-springs of the river. At Peru you attain the 
highest inhabited point in the State; founded on a rock to 
which its steeple is tied down by cable, Peru Church is 
unique; if you are caught there in a shower they will tell 
you that the drops racing down one side of the roof run 
into the Connecticut, and on the other, swell the Housatonic; 
Peru is therefore the nearest hallooing point of the waters 
of these two New England rivers, first seen by the Dutch 
in 1614. From Peru a "sightly" road lies across the very 
top of the Green Mountain Range through Windsor, Savoy, 



322 Old Paths of the New England Border 

and Florida to North Adams. Dalton's neighbor, Hinsdale, 
is also quite lofty, and an attractive walk is that from 
Hinsdale to Day Mountain, seven hundred feet above Dalton 
village. 

If you are in Dalton but for a day, you will carry away a 
remembrance of the dark, rushing river, and the paper-mills, 
truly decorative. (The Carsons built the Old Defiance Mill, 
later owned by the Hon. Byron Weston, each playing a 
prominent part in town history.) Here are pleasant old- 
fashioned houses, that of William Williams, the first town 
clerk, the Deacon Abijah Parks, Brown, Nathaniel Merriam, 
and Crane homesteads, and fine farms on the Pittsfield 
border, the "Unkamet" farm of the Miltons and the 
Allen and Crane farms. 

The settlement in 1755 was led by Dr. Perez Ward, 
followed by Joseph Chamberlain and Josiah Lawrence. In 
1799 Zenas Crane saw in the multiple pure rills gushing 
from the hillsides the best of "feed" for a paper-mill 1 
and erected the second in Massachusetts. The Crane 
mill at Coltsville now makes the bank-note paper for the 
government. 

There are many accessible heights in the vicinity. On 
Mount Weston, the opening of the chalet of Lieutenant- 
Governor Weston was made memorable in 1885 (says Mr. 
Clark W. Bryan, author of the delightful Book of Berkshire) 
by the Pittsfield Monday Evening Club and "the flow of 
soul participated in by Senator Dawes, Pastor Jenkins, 



■To this end a sprightly and fetching paragraph appeared in the 

Pittsfield Sun: 

"Americans: 
"Encourage your own manufactories, and they will Improve. Ladies 
save your Rags. As the Subscribers have it in contemplation to erect 
a Paper-mill in Dalton, the ensuing Spring; and the business being very 
beneficent to the community at large, they flatter themselves they shall 
meet with due encouragement etc. [Signed] Henry Marshall, Zenas Crane 
and John Willard." 



324 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Judge Barker, the Rev. William Wilberforce Newton, and 
others." On Mt. Pleasant in West Windsor is the country 
house of Senator Crane; from this pinnacle the Catskills 
are in sight. The pioneers on Mt. Pleasant, Alpheus 
Brown and Stephen Hume, suffered great hardships, obliged 
as they were to travel to Stafford's Hill in Cheshire for pork 
and meat. 

You will not fail to see Dalton's chaotic Gulf, the Wizard's 
Glen, where the sweetest voice echoes and re-echoes in un- 
canny shrieks. One legend of the place relates to a hunter, 
who, while dressing his quarry, was overtaken by a thunder- 
storm. Lightning revealed an Indian girl with pleading 
eyes, about to be sacrificed on the Devil's Altar by phantoms; 
the hunter took out the Good Book and with a terrible 
crash all vanished. 

A particular charm of the pastoral town of Windsor is 
the brook where Waconah, favorite daughter of Miahcomo, 
met her fate. After some successful hours of angling, she 
sat dreamily twining columbines in her hair by a mirror 
pool under the Falls; a pretty picture in her white deerskin, 
trimmed with oriole and bluebird feathers, thought the 
young brave who startled her with the words, "Hail! 
Bright Star!" She sprang to her feet. — "Nessacus is 
weary," said he, "with flying before the Long Knives, will 
the Bright Star's people shut their lodges against their 
brethren?" The maiden answered, "My father Miahcomo 
has gone towards the setting sun, across the Taghonics 
to the Mohawks, but his lodges are always open; come, my 
brother's people are welcome." On their path to the 
village, Nessacus related the fate of his chief King Philip, and 
Waconah told him that her people here were Pequots who 
escaped thither [to Dalton] after being driven from the 
fort at Mystic. Thereupon Nessacus, the Wampanoag, 
fell in love with the daughter of the Pequots. Miahcomo 
returning brought with him the Mohawk Yonnongah; many 




Waconah Falls, Windsor. 
Within walking distance of Dalton. 



325 



3^6 Old Paths of the New England Border 

scalps proudly hung at his belt and he confidently asked 
the hand of Waconah for his fourth wife. When Nessacus 
declared himself also a suitor, the old warrior employed 
alternately threats and promises. Councils were held over 
the weighty matter for Waconah was the idol of the tribe. 
"Let the Great Spirit speak, and we will obey," said Miah- 
como. Tashmu, crafty wizard or priest of the tribe, 
favored the Mohawk, and declared Manitou revealed to 
him in the Wizard's Glen that it was his will that the spirit 
of the stream should decide, by turning the canoe toward 
the worthy suitor. 

After a solemn feast, the tribe assembled at Waconah 's 
brook; the rivals Nessacus and Yonnongah were placed on 
opposite banks. And Tashmu was there, the hypocrite 
who had secretly moved the dividing rock the night before 
in order to favor the old warrior. 

"Let Manitou speak!" and the sacred canoe, carved with 
mystic signs, floated on, then hung poised on the rock mid- 
stream, then seemed to incline toward the Mohawk, but the 
inconstant current struck it obliquely, it swung slowly 
around, and passed down by the feet of Nessacus. : 'The 
Great Spirit hath spoken, and it is good!" said Miahcomo, 
and the people shouted, "Hoh! It is good!" Tashmu and 
Yonnongah, discomfited, disappeared, Tashmu to betray 
Nessacus to the whites. 

As the wedding festivities were progressing, a messenger 
brought news that Major Talcott, with other Long Knives 
had slain the sachem of Quaboag, and was at Mahaiwe on the 
Housatonic, and he would destroy Miahcomo's wigwams 
as soon as he could obtain provisions Nessacus, taking 
Waconah by the hand, promised to lead them to a new 
prairie-home, and having executed the traitor Tashmu they 
took the western trail. 1 



1 This legend of Waconah Falls was related to Godfrey Greyloek by a 
young Indian of the Stockbridge tribe, who had come back from the western 
home of his people to be educated. 



Constitution Hill and Balance Rock 327 



LAXESBORO 



In Lanesboro one may float on Poontoosuc Lake, and 
visit Balance Rock, or climb the gentle slope of Constitution 
Hill. From the stage-road a fascinating stretch of meadows, 
broken by a rushing rivulet, meets the hills. Here you will 




The Hubbell Homestead, Lanesboro. Built in ifjo-So by Matthew 
Hubbell of Woodbury, Conn., and his son Woleott Hubbell. 

exclaim over the clarity of the atmosphere, — every leaf of 
alder and elm is clean cut, a tree of character. At evening 
myriads of glow-worms dance in the grass. It is said that 
the Stockbridge Indians camped in these meadows in front 
of the Hubbell homestead on their march to Benninerton. 



328 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Captain Matthew Hubbell, a pioneer from Woodbury, now 
Newtown, Conn., built here about 1769; it is surmised that 
it may have been the property previously of Major Thaddeus 
Curtis, whose daughter became the wife of the Hon. Wolcott 
Hubbell. He served as minute-man and fought at Ben- 
nington, which General Washington said was "the turning 
point of the war." His son Algernon S. Hubbell was a 
partner of Governor Briggs. 1 

Across Hoosac Mountain came Henry Clay to visit his 
friend the Hon. Henry Shaw at Lanesboro. Another emi- 
nent son of the town was Jonathan Smith whose speech 
won the day for the Constitution of Massachusetts. The 
Bradley homestead stands near St. Luke's Church. Silver 
Street is a favorite walk. A drive to conjure with is that 
across Potter Mountain through Hancock, where the traveller 
finds the Lulu Cascade and Berry Pond on a mountain- 
summit; or on to Lebanon Springs, called "The 
Pool" by Miss Sedgwick. Horace E. Scudder wrote the 
Bodley Books in Lanesboro and Mrs. Campbell, Prisoners 
of Poverty. 

From Lanesboro two roads lead toward Williamstown 
which are rivals in romantic beauty; the old stage-road 
through New Ashford and lovely valley of South Williams- 
town was preferred by Samuel Bowles on his annual trip 
to Commencement at Williams College. New Ashford lies in 
a picturesque gorge between Saddle Ball and the Taconics 
at the headwaters of the west branch of the Housatonic. 
For several miles a deliriously cool stream parallels the road 
and in the north part of the town is a wild chasm close to 
the highway, with the ruins of the old saw-mill, a scene for 
a painter. Baker's Cave is another curious abyss with a 

1 "In 1818, the Baptist church was organized through the efforts of 
Dr. William H. Tyler and Governor Briggs," says the Rev. C. J. Palmer 
in his History of the Town of Lancsborough. 




*i 



The house of Henry W. Shaw, "Josh Billings," Lancsboro. 



329 



33° Old Paths of the New England Border 

cold spring at the bottom. In this fair country one recalls 
Wordsworth's 

" Up! up! my Friend and quit your books; 

Books! lis a dull and endless strife: 
Come, hear the woodland linnet, 
How sweet liis music! on my life, 
There 's more of wisdom in it." 

ON lO WILLIAMSTOWN VIA CHESHIRE 

The other Old Path to Williamstown is far more rugged; 
it vaults through Cheshire and along the valley of the 
Hoosac River by way of Adams to North Adams, and passes 
within view of Fort Massachusetts on the Harrison flats. 
Cheshire is oddly planted among the unaccountably irreg- 
ular mountains of the south spur of the Greylock group. 

President Jefferson's huge Cheshire cheese was created from 
the curds gathered together from the mountain farms by one 
of his most ardent admirers, the eccentric and celebrated 
preacher, Elder Leland, who escorted it to the White House 
in person. The first Baptist church in Berkshire stood on 
Stafford's Hill (of glorious views) ; here built the pioneers of 
1766 from Warwick, Coventry, and Newport, R. I. To the 
southern part of the town came settlers from Swansea, 
Mass., whose ancestors removed to Old Rehoboth from 
Wales in 166,^. 

The saunterer through Pork Lane discovers charms which 
belie its prosaic name. A favorite road to Adams is through 
the "Pumpkin Hook" neighborhood. From Cheshire a 
wood-road leads up Greylock. Another road to the summit 
is from the town of Adams to which Greylock belongs. 

Adams was founded by the Uptons and other Quakers. 
Familiar names are Fisk, Anthony, Richmond, and Dean. 




The Thompson Memorial Chapel, and Griffin Hall, Williams College 

Williamstoien, Mass. 



33i 



33 2 Old Paths of the New England Border 

The town's fine statue of McKinley is a memory of his 
week's visit here. The first attempt to wrest yellow gold l 
from Greyloek was made from Adams, by the historic 
Bowerman family. 

The famous Old Notch road will carry you to North 
Adams. Excursions are in order to every point of the com- 
pass from the "Tunnel City"; first to obtain a bird's-eye 
view, at sunset, of Greyloek and the inter-clustered moun- 
tains. Then a mile northeast to the Natural Bridge on 
Hudson Brook with its marble pool (a remarkable pot-hole) 
described by Hawthorne. Hudson Brook flows into the 
Mayunsook, or Little Deerfield, a wild highland rivulet, 
which endows North Adams with a wonderful water-power. 

North Adams stands at the west door of Hoosac Tunnel 
by means of which the riches of western fields are carried 
direct to the Massachusetts seaboard. The Indian's For- 
bidden Mountain is of such a flinty heart that twenty 
millions of "very hard cash" was needed to pierce it effect- 
ually. An intimate book 2 of the Hoosac Valley, and a 
delightful companion for a tramp across the pastures of 
Northwestern Berkshire or by the fireside, is that by Grace 
Greyloek Niles; she knows the secrets of marble-caverns, 
of sweet paths that will lead you away from the footsteps of 
man to Aurora's lake, under the rude brow of the Hoosac, 
still haunt of the pale Pink Moccasin-Flower, the wake-robin, 
and marsh-thrush; or, let us tramp afield and cross the 
border into Vermont to search for treasures in Rattlesnake 
Swamp, Mount (Eta. You can drive up Greyloek on the 
highway beneficently accomplished by the Greyloek Park 
Association; but you will prefer to take fisherman's luck 
through The Notch, Bohemian fashion, scrambling up ragged 



1 " Gold-Hunting in Berkshire," a sketch in The Berkshire Hills of June, 
1902, edited by Colonel William Phillips. 

2 Bog-Trotting jor Orchids, G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



Thoreau on Greylock Summit 333 

glens of misty cascades with mural decorations of hemlocks 
and vine. Is it not better — if one may — -to go a-gypsying 
for a season, cut the wood for the camp-fire to set the pot 
a-boiling, rest on pine boughs, and watch the sky with a 
lover's look to know whether it will smile or frown, than to 
be merely a tame duck ; or, as Dr. Van Dyke says, one of " the 
people who always live in houses, and sleep in buds, and 
walk on pavements, and buy their food of butchers and 
bakers, . . . boarders in the world " ? 

Thoreau attained Greylock's summit and found himself 
" in the dazzling halls of Aurora . . . playing with 
the rosy fingers of the Dawn, and not a crevice through 
the clouds from which those trivial places of Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut, and Vermont could be seen." Was it 
not the Mist of our Berkshire Highlands which inspired 
Thoreau : 

"Low-anchored cloud, 
Newfoundland air, 
Fountain-head and source of rivers, 
Dew-cloth, dream drapery, 
And napkins spread by fays; 
Drifting meadow of the air." 

"I had a view of Williamstown from Greylock summit," 
says Hawthorne, "a white village and a steeple in a gradual 
hollow with huge mountain swells heaving up like immense 
subsiding waves far and wide around it." 

These mountains by which an ideal New England town is 
hemmed in, are intimately associated by name with the 
history and traditions of Williams College. The twin peaks 
of Mount Hopkins — 2790 feet high — are named for Pres- 
ident Mark Hopkins and Professor Albert Hopkins; and 
Mount Fitch, Mount Griffin, and Mount Chadbourne in 
honor of three other Presidents of the College. There is 



Richmond's Boulder Trains 335 

a choice of four passes across the Taconics into New Y< irk 
State, the Petersburg, Berlin, Kidder, Johnson Passes. 

A monument unique is that to the memory of the Hay- 
stack, in the shade of which was founded the American 
Board of Foreign Missions; students' meetings were also 
held under an ancient willow near the old home of 
Professor Arthur L. Perry, for years President of the 
Berkshire Historical Society, and the historian of Williams- 
town. His son Bliss Perry was called from Williams to 
Princeton, and to the Editor's Chair of The Atlantic Monthly, 
and is the successor of James Russell Lowell at Harvard. 

Although Thanatopsis was written at Cummington fol- 
lowing Bryant's seven months at Williams College, tradition 
associates with Flora's Glen the lines: 

" for liis gayer hours 
She had a voice of gladness and a smile, 
And eloquence of beauty." 

RICHMOND 

Richmond, once known as Mount Ephraim, is famous for 
its boulder trains. If you will take the romantic road to 
Canaan Four Corners and Queechy Lake, you will note just 
north a mountain west of a valley; here on Fry's Hill start 
some remarkable boulder trains, which cross the road near 
the first Shaker settlement, and over Merriman's Mount, 
then trail across the town of Richmond into Lenox near 
the Stockbriclge Bowl. The most interesting example of 
the Richmond boulders is on the top of Perry's Peak, just 
over the brow of the hill from the Richmond side. 

Sir Charles Lyell visited Richmond in order to trace 
their course under the guidance of Dr. Stephen Reid, and 
delivered a paper on Richmond's boulder trains before the 
Royal Institute of Great Britain. A boulder known as 



33 6 Old Paths of the New England Border 

"Dr. Reid's pet" is on Snake Hill, a terrace of South 
Mountain. Professor James D. Dana of Yale in 1SS6 re- 
ported the discovery of fossils just over the Taconic range 
in Canaan, N. Y. He says that the Stockbridge limestone, 
which is also the limestone of Canaan and Williamstown, 
was once full of coral fossils ' and crinoids, and but for the 
crystallization of the rock converting it into marble, these 
would be distinct in the rock now. 

Richmond is also notable for its beautiful open reaches of 
rolling country, for as yet a superabundance of heavy foliage 
has not robbed her of invigorating mountain outlines and 
the luminous cloud-pictures of Berkshire skies, as in parts of 
Lenox. In her northwest corner is Perry's Peak, next in 
height to The Dome. Here at your feet is the Canaan 
Shakers' settlement and the lovely valley of Lebanon, also 
the Mount Lebanon Shaker village farther north, and 
Greylock. South are the West Stockbridge and Alford 
hills, and Osceola tops the Lenox range. Perry's Peak is 
associated with the Rev. David Perry (i 784-181 6). The 
homestead of his successor, the Rev. Edwin Welles Dwight, 
is now the residence of Mrs. Henry March. His son Judge 
Charles C. Dwight was a member of the New York Con- 
stitutional Convention and Justice of the Supreme Court. 
A grandson, R. Henry W. Dwight, of Boston, a past Pres- 
ident of the Sons of the Revolution of Massachusetts, has 
an unusual collection of rare Berkshire manuscripts and 
broadsides and memorabilia of the Dwight family. The 
Sherrill- Jennings house, now the home of Chester Hunting- 
ton, Esq., was built by Henry Sherrill, to whose fine country 
store on the corner of Canaan and State roads, Pittsfield 
people came to shop. This homestead, " Kenmore Hall" 
was the home of Frederick Alfred Bridgeman. One of 

1 The sketch by Prof. James D. Dana on Berkshire Geology in the Berk- 
shire Historical Society Papers is a useful guide. 



Richmond Homesteads 337 

Richmond's interesting homesteads (now the Nichols res- 
idence) was the home of Miss Catherine Peirson, whose 
father, Nathan Peirson, owned extensive tanneries here. 
In this vicinity were built the early Rossiter, Branch, and 
Cook houses. Near Stevens Corners — of old " Indian 
Bread Corners" — are beautiful glens and an altogether 
charming landscape. 

A story of the Squire Henry Peirson homestead relates 
to his son Josiah who as a youth was employed in teaming 
supplies between Hudson, N. Y. and Berkshire. Belated on 
his homeward road, he drove into the yard early one Sabbath 
morning and unluckily was seen by two pair of bright eyes 
belonging to Polly and Nabby Rossiter, the daughters of a 
neighbor. All three were shortly summoned before the 
court. Tradition says that Josiah was acquitted instead of 
receiving a fine for breaking the Sabbath, as the judge ruled 
that the two witnesses had seen him only from the inside 
of the house through a closed window, and such evidence 
was incompetent. He afterward married Nabby Rossiter. 



GREAT BARRINGTON (UPPER HOUSATONNUCK) 

1733-1761 

" This tract of country, wild, forbidding, and destitute of roads other 
than the Indian trail, . . . lay in the direct route, — via Springfield, 
Westfield, and Kinderhook, between Boston and Albany. . . . Occasionally 
traversed by bodies of soldiery in the early ivars, and by other parties on pub- 
lic business, it was better known to the neighboring New York border, whose 
traders were acevtstomed to visit it for the purpose of traffic with the Indians, 
than to the more remote inhabitants of Massacliusetts." 

History of Great Harrington by Taylor. 

The Valley of the great river of Berkshire was named 
by the Mohicans, who, leaving their ancestral holdings in 
the hands of the Patroons of Rensselaerwyck, Kinderhook, 
and Lh'ingston, drifted over from the Hudson into the new 
wilderness of the Housatonic Valley; they called the valley 
Ou-thot-ton-nook or Housatonnuck, and the river took its 
name from the valley. Not many years since' came a 
Stockbridge Indian to visit the land of his fathers, and 
illustrated the word by pointing to the full moon just rising 
over East Mountain in Great Barrington, Ou-thot-ton- 
nook — "over the mountain." 

The settlement at Housatonnuck or Great Barrington 
sprang up at the principal fordway on the main trail from 
Fort Orange near Albany, N. Y., to Springfield and Massa- 
chusetts Bay. It was known to the Dutch as "the New 
England Path." Great Barrington was the "Great Wig- 
wam" or — as the Stockbridge Indians called it — Mahaiwe 
(Nei-hai-we), the " place down-stream." (The Indian burial- 
ground in Great Barrington is known as Mahaiwe). Here, 
near the old fordway, in all probability occurred that 
celebrated scrimmage between King Philip's warriors flying 
to refuge in the West, and the gallant Major Talcott, son 

338 




The Housatonic at Great Barrington. 



339 



34Q Old Paths of the New England Border 

of the Worshipful John Talcott of Hartford, who pursued 
them from Westfield over the wilderness trail to the banks 
of the Housa tonic. 

As early as 1694, a party of gentlemen from Boston 
camped here — the Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth and other 
Commissioners on their way to Albany to hold a great 
council-fire with the "Five Nations." Mr. Wadsworth kept 
a journal of events: 

" With Captain Sewal and Major Townsend, being com- 
missioned to treat with ye Mockways [Mohawks], set out 
from Boston about half past 12 Monday Aug. 6, 1694. . . . 
At Watertown, we met with Lieut. Hammond and thirty 
troopers, who were appointed for a guard to Springfield. 
Mr. Dwite of Hartford did accidently fall into our 
company, and after the same manner, accidently he and 
his horse both together fell into a brook, but both rose again 
without damage. This day we dined in ye woods. Pleas- 
ant descants were made upon ye dining room; it was said 
yt it was large, high, curiously hung with green; our dining 
place was also accomodated with ye pleasancy of a mur- 
muring rivulet. This day some of our company saw a 
bear. . . . This night we went over to Westfield, . . . 
thence toward Albany; the nearest way thro' ye woods, 
being accompanied with Collonel Pinchon, in commission 
with Capt. Sewal and Maj. Townsend, by ye Council of ye 
Province of ye Mass. Bay, and Collonel Allen and Captain 
Stanley, Commissioners for Connecticutt Colony. For a 
guard we had with us Cap. Wadsworth of Hartford, and 
with him 60 Dragoons. . . . took up our lodgings, 
about sundown in ye woods, at a place called Ouseton- 
nuck [Great Barrington] formerly inhabited by Indians. 
Thro this place runs a very curious river, the same (which 
some say) runs thro' Stratford." ( The Housatonic River 
at its mouth was known for a time as Stratford River.) 
On arriving in Albany, Mr. Wadsworth says, "The 



Matthew Arnold Admires the Dome 341 

treaty 1 was held in ye street a little above the meeting 
house; Ye Sachims were attended with many other Indi- 
ans ... Ye Sachim of ye Maquas being ye leader, 
. . . when we were sat down, the}' sang two or three 
songs of peace, before they began ye treaty." 




Across Pinc-to[>s to the Dome, or Mt. Everett. 
"I like Berkshire more and more. The Dome is a really imposing and 
beautiful mass; I have seen it in many lights and with 

ever increasing admiration. I teas shown the Green River yesterday. 
the river immortalized by the American Wordsworth, i. e., Bryant." 

Matthew Arnold to Charles Eliot Norton, Aug. 27,1886. 

A few years after the Boston Commissioners travelled 
down Three-Mile Hill (three miles it is from the top to the 
Great Bridge) and passed through Housatonnuck, Captain 

1 At the Council were present besides the Commissioners from New 
England, "His Excellency ye Governour of York with fore of his Council, 
Collonel Bayard, Coll. William Smith, Coll. Stephen Van Cortland, 
Chidley Brook, Esq., Major Peter Schuyler, Col. Andrew Hamilton, 
Governour of New Jerseys." 



342 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Konkapot and a few Indian families were here and others 
at Skatekook (Sheffield) and Wnahtukook (Stockbridge) . 
In Great Barrington a mission wigwam was built about a 
mile south of Maus-waw-se-ki (Monument Mt.). John 
Sergeant, fresh from Yale, preached here until they removed 
to the reservation of Indian Town. 

When Matthew Arnold visited the chosen valley of the 
transplanted Mohicans, did he recall his first impression of 
America, and his facetious little remark, apropos of the 
idea of many foreigners, that Indians in war-paint frequented 
the boulevards scarce a league from Broadway? Arnold 
writes: "We had crossed the bar and were inside New York 
Bay. . . . You may imagine I was on deck with the 
first light. We were lying off Staten Island, a beautiful 
orne landscape with spires, villas, hills, and woods. 'Just 
like Richmond,' I said to some one by me, ' and not a sin- 
gle Mohican running about.' This precious speech got 
into the newspapers here ! " 

Great Barrington was the North Parish of Sheffield from 
1 742-1 761. Boundary disputes became hot and fierce 
between Patroons of the border manors and the Massa- 
chusetts settlers, over debatable land east of the Taconics. 
New York claimed by patent the lands east as far as the 
Connecticut River, and Massachusetts by right of occupation. 

On the Van Rensselaer Manor in 1762, serious disturb- 
ances broke out owing to refusals to pay rent to the Manor- 
house, and Robert Noble, who had been engaged with David 
Ingersoll and Josiah Loomis in the more peaceful occupa- 
tion of establishing an Episcopal Church 1 in Great Bar- 
rington — the first in Berkshire, — " put himself at the head of 
an armed force, and actually defeated a strong posse headed 

1 The land for the church was given by John Burghardt in 1763. Rev. 
Gideon Bostwick was the first established minister. After the Revolution, 
a monument of wood with a gilded ball on top was placed to the memory 
of Washington near the pulpit. 



Burgoyne in Great Barrington 



'A3 




Lake Mansfield. 

by the sheriff of Albany who were attempting to dispossess 
squatters on the Van Renssalaer tract." ! 

The story of Belcher's Cave near "Bung Hill Corner" in 
Great Barrington is connected with these troublous times; 
a gang of counterfeiters is said to have had their workshop 
here with "Gill Belcher, Goldsmith," as leader. 

Two of the most exciting events of the Revolution took 
place in '77. At the call for troops to resist Burgoyne, 
Captain William King called a town meeting and volunteers 
went out to Saratoga under Captain Silas Goodrich in the 
regiment of Colonel John Ashley, also a company from 
Alford under Captain Sylvanus Wilcox. Then came the 

'Franklin Leonard Pope on The Western Boundary of Massachusetts, 
Berkshire Historical Papers, 1886. A map of the Housatonic Townships 
of 1 76 1, drawn by Mr. Pope is included in the invaluable History of Great 
Barrington by Charles J. Taylor, to whom all Berkshire is indebted for his 
research on the early Patents. 



344 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



news of the dramatic surrender 1 to General Gates, followed 
by the encampment here of the prisoners-of-war ; with 
laggard steps the officers led the troops down over the old 
trail through Kinderhook into Great Barrington, wearing 
their side-arms according to the terms of capitulation made 
at this "Convention of Saratoga." 

General Burgoyne, being in- 
disposed, was the guest of Colonel 
Elijah D wight in the quaint 
" Henderson house" which stands 
near the Berkshire Inn. This 
house was built by the distin- 
guished General Joseph Dwight in 
1759 and was long the finest 
dwelling in the township. In it 
William Cullen Bryant was mar- 
ried to Miss Lucy Fairchild. The 
Hessian General, Baron Riedes- 
del, was quartered in the old 
Episcopal Church. 

We do not know whether the 
courageous and brilliant Bar- 
oness Riedesdel passed through 
Great Barrington on her way to 
Boston, after being entertained 
by Mrs. Schuyler during the 



LANDMARKS: Boulder-Monu- 

ment at Old Indian Fordway on the 
Housatonic River near the "Great 
Wigwam," presented to Great Bar- 
rington by the Thursday Morning 
Club, 1004. General Joseph Dwight- 
Henderson house, oldest in Great 
Barrington; here Bryant was mar- 
ried. Hopkins Memorial Manse. 
Hopkins house (about 1803), resi- 
dence Mrs. Samuel Camp. Next 
stood the house (1765) of Colonel 
Mark Hopkins, Treasurer of the 
County; in his office Judge Theodore 
Sedgwick studied law At the library 
is a photograph of Beckett House, 
the seat of the Viscounts Barrington, 
on the very ancient Manor of Beckett, 
at Shrivenham in the Vale of the 
White Horse, Berkshire, England; 
sent by Sir William A. C. Barrington 
son of the sixth Lord Barrington. 
to the designer of the Town Seal. 
Dr. William Whiting house; here the 
judges of the Crown took refuge 
when in 1774 the patriots refused to 
allow them to hold court. Rev. 
Gideon Bostwick-Burr house Post- 
office on site of Major Rossiter Tav- 
ern. St. James Church; the vesti- 
bule is on site of William Cullen 
Bryant's law office, Tablet. Old 



1 The captive General admitted Gates's magnanimity and wrote to the 
Earl of Derby that when the British soldiers marched out of their camp 
to pile their arms, not a man of the American troops was to be seen. The 
English and German generals dined with Burgoyne on the day after 
defeat on boards laid across barrels, the Americans being accustomed 
to frugal meals. Burgoyne spoke flatteringly of the American dress 
and discipline and said : "Your funds of men are inexhaustible. Like the 
Hydra's head, when cut off, seven more spring up in its stead." Then 
he proposed a toast to General Washington, an attention that Gates 
returned by drinking the health of the King of England. 



The Baroness Riedesdel 



343 




A Cart-path through Winter-woods. The Searles 
Estate, Great Barrington. 

"Fill soft and deep, O winter snows ! 
The sweet azalia's oaken dells." — Whittier. 



Rectory removed to Castle St., resi- 
dence of Miss Abby Russell. 
George R. Ives-Ralph Taylor house 
(1815) residence Mrs. Charles J. 
Taylor. The Dr. C. T. Collins house 
stands on the lot of Dr. Joseph Lee. 
"Wainwright Hall" built by Peter 
Ingersoll the Tory, his confiscated 
house purchased by David Wain- 
wright; his grandson, Lieutenant 
George Wainwright, a son of General 
Timothy Wainwright, distinguished 



stay in Albany. But under the 
unexpectedly adverse circum- 
stances of the expedition, 
Madam Riedesdel never parted 
with her rose-colored glasses or 
interest in all things American; 
for it seems the brilliant army 
left Canada with confidence in. 



34^ 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



himself at Palo Alto and the storm- 
ing of Monterey. Leavitt estate, 
" Brookside." Merritt Wheeler 
homestead. Whitlock house. Jona- 
than Nash-Dearing house i i7go). 

DRIVES FROM GREAT BARRING- 
TON: Alford and return — //miles; 
Ashley Falls — to; Bash Bish — //; 
Bear Rock, by Mount Washington — 
15; Bear Rock, by Mount Washing- 
ton, return by Sheffield — 28; Canaan, 
Conn. — 12; Clayton — //; Glendale, 
— 7; Green River, N. Y., by Seekonk, 
return by North Egremont — 17; 
Hudson, N. Y.— if. Lake Buel— 5; 
" Highlawn Farm," — 12k; Hills- 
dale. N. Y. — 10; Housatonic — 5; 
Lake Garfield — 10; Lakeville, Conn. 
— 17; Lee — // I; Mount Washing- 
ton, Whitbeck's, Sunset Moun- 
tain — //; Mount Washington P. O. — 
jo; New Marlboro', return by Brush 
Hill — 22 ; North Egremont — 5 ; North 
Egremont, Prospect Lake, return by 
Ox Bow Summit, Baldwin Hill — /;; 
Otis Reservoir — /o; Pittsfield — 20; 
Sage's Ravine — 12; Sage's Ravine, 
return by Chapinville, Cooper Hill 
— 27; Sheffield — 6; Stockbridge, by 
Glendale — ir>; Tipping Rock, by 
Mill River, return by Southfield, New 
Marlboro', Lake Buel — 26; The 
Dome Summit — 14. Between Shef- 
field and Great Barrington are 7 
roads, and 21 trips returning by 
different roads from 13 to 23 miles. 



an easy victory 1 and many offi- 
cers' wives attended their hus- 
bands, promising themselves an 
agreeable trip to New York. On 
the eve of surrender, the illumi- 
nated mansion of General Schuy- 
ler rang, says the Brunswick 
Journal '."with singing, laughter, 
and the jingling of glasses," 
as Burgoyne and his compan- 
ions made merry over a royal 
supper. Outside, cold and hun- 
gry officers slept on the ground, 
and wet through and through 
by rains Baroness Riedesdel lay 
down with her children upon 
straw before an open fire. Next 
day General Schuyler's Saratoga 
mansion was burned to the 
ground as a military necessity, 
and rebuilt in fifteen days by 
General Gates's army with tim- 
ber drawn from the forest. 



The closing scene of Shays 's Rebellion, that singular revolt 
caused by hard times after the Revolution, took place in 
Great Barrington. Paper money was worth nothing and 
the best of folks were obliged to go to jail for want of money 
to pay taxes. The editor of the Worcester Spy took 
subscriptions in salt pork. Captain Hamlin and other 

1 While Baroness Riedesdel was the guest of Mrs. Schuyler, "One of 
her little girls, on just coining into the house, exclaimed, 'Oh Mama! is 
this the palace papa was to have when he came to America?' As the 
Schuyler family understood German, Madam Riedesdel colored at the 
remark, which however was pleasantly got over." — Life of Peter Van 
Schaick. 












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Pond's Brook, Huntington. 
Of the fraternity of hill-streams of Western Massachusetts. Here Bryant 
wrote " I never can Forget," a fact mentioned by him to George William 
Curtis. 



347 



34 8 Old Paths of the New England Border 

characters in Bellamy's Duke of Stockbridge were real person- 
ages hereabouts. 

Great Barrington is rich in rivers, — the Housatonic, the 
Williams, and that loved by Bryant, the pellucid Green River, 
filled with sparkles of light; the Indians called it Waum- 
paniksepoot — White River, — but the Settlement Committee 
changed the name of this surpassingly beautiful stream — 
flowing down from Austerlitz, N. Y., through Alford and Egre- 
mont — to accord with the color of its waters. Bryant fled 
from the drudgery of law to the banks of Green River seek- 
ing a lonely hour in his favorite refuge under a tree overhang- 
ing the stream on the estate of the late J. Milton Mackie. 
Bryant filled several town offices and Dr. Arthur Lawrence 
writes: "It was Bryant's duty as town clerk to publish the 
banns of marriage in the church, which was generally done 
by reading them aloud; but in his own case he pinned the 
required notice on the door of the vestibule, and kept care- 
fully out of sight." l As Justice of the Peace, he twice 
performed the marriage ceremony, and an old gentleman 
made it his boast that he was "jined to his first old woman 
by Squire Bryant." 

One of Nature's marvels is the sunset light flung against 
East Mountain, and to me the sweetest of Bryant's verse 
written here is A Walk at Sunset. 

"Oh sun! that o'er the western mountains now 
Go'st down in glory! ever beautiful 

Yet, loveliest are thy setting smiles, and fair, 
Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues 

That live among the clouds, and flush the air, 
Lingering and deepening at the hour o] dews." 

Every one climbs the flower-decked path of Mount Peter ; 

1 "Bryant and the Berkshire Hills," The Century Magazine, July, 1895. 



Magnificent View-Points 349 

blue-bells and columbine find a foothold in the crevices of 
1 >lue limestone. North of Mount Peter (so called for Captain 
Peter Ingersoll) is Kellogg Terrace, the estate of Mrs. E. F. 
Searles. The Hopkins Memorial Manse of solid granite was 
erected by Mrs. Mary Hopkins Searles for the Congregational 
church, in honor of its first pastor, the pupil and intimate 
friend of Jonathan Edwards — Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D.D. 
He is the hero of The Minister's Wooing. General Ives and 
the Hon. John Whiting were Major-Generals of Militia. 
The Hon. Increase Sumner was prominent in civic affairs 
for nearly fifty years. 

Great Barrington was the County Seat until the courts 
were removed to Lenox in 1787. In that epoch the distin- 
guished lawyer Major-General Thomas Ives was prominent 
in town and military affairs. Mrs. Ives was a grand- 
daughter of General Dwight, and a daughter of the Hon. 
Jedediah Foster of Brookfield, Mass. The Misses Ives were 
great belles, and one of their ball invitations printed on the 
back of a playing card in 18 10 is in the possession of Miss 
Harriet Wells. 

Mr. Fuller's Public Ball 

The Miss Ives 

company is requested at Mr. Rubles 

ball-room on Friday Feb. 2nd, at 6 o'clock P.M. 

H. D. Sedgwick ) 

S. Jones v Managers 

C. Webster \ 

A great charm of the town is its magnificent view-points — 
to Prospect Rock or East Rock on Mount Bryant is a fairly 
hard climb, but, within half a mile of the railroad station, 
an easy path creeps upward through a sunshiny hill pasture 
bordered by a green wood ; pine-needles strewn over tree- 
roots offer an agreeable seat in the forest balcony on the 



35° Old Paths of the New England Border 

edge of the hill ; across swaying tree-tops swells The Dome 
of the Taconics. The inspiring landscape of valley and 
mountain extends into three States. As evening ap- 
proaches, the wood-thrush pipes in harmony with the lines 
of Cowper: 




Mor>iiiig. The East Road to Sheffield. 

" No noise is here, or one that hinders thought; 
Stillness accompanied with sounds like these 
Charms more than silence. Meditation here 
May think down hours to moments. Here the heart 
May give a useful lesson to the head 
And' learning wiser grow without his books." 

The road to Alford and the East Road to Sheffield are 



Sage's Ravine and the Ice Gulf 351 

rivals in beauty. The latter skirts June Mountain (named 
for Benjamin June who cleared it) and crosses Sheffield Plain. 
From Sheffield, The Dome l of the Taconics appears so near 
and so soft in its outlines that one would never dream of 
that ragged, precipitous Bash Bish gorge on its slope. The 
famous Sage's Ravine lies between Race and Bear moun- 
tains, and the Ice Gulf west of Lake Buel. 

In Sheffield is Barnard Mountain and the Barnard home- 
stead, the home of Major-General Barnard, "the soldier- 
scholar of our Civil War"; Dr. Frederick A. P. Barnard, 
President of Columbia University, was born in Sheffield, and 
Daniel Dewey Barnard, minister to Prussia; also, George F. 
Root, the composer. Not far from Sheffield's "Big Elm," 
in which "The Autocrat" delighted, lived the Rev. Orville 
Dewey, one of the best beloved exponents of Unitarianism. 
The " Friendly Union " building is a memorial to Dr. Dewey. 

1 The usual way of ascending The Dome from South Egremont is to 
ride some ten miles into the village of Mount Washington within twenty 
minutes of the summit. A romantic path from South Egremont on the 
eastern side is described by Mr. John Coleman Adams: "Like most well- 
regulated mountain trails this one began in a wood-road, old and grass- 
grown and mossy " (Xaturc Studies in Berkshire, G. P. Putnam's Sons). 



FROM GREAT BARRINGTON TO LITCHFIELD 

THE UNDER MOUNTAIN ROAD 

The finest of all fine roads in Lower Berkshire is the 
Under Mountain Road lying between Great Barrington and 
Salisbury, Conn. It runs nearly parallel with the summit 
line of the Taconic Range — at a respectful distance, thus 
commanding a fine perspective. In the first miles out of 
Great Barrington, you pass near the scene of Shays 's fight 
in 1787 and a corner of Bow- Wow and the Curtis home- 
stead in its pretty green mountain frame; the road borders 
the lofty township of Mount Washington, the extreme 
southwestern corner of Berkshire. Mount Washington was 
long the home of the "Sky Farm poets," Elaine and Dora 
R. Goodale; an armful of Apple-Blossoms made them 
famous. 

From the Under Mountain Road you may turn aside at 
the Connecticut boundary and visit Sage's Ravine, a beauti- 
ful but fearsome spot where one would not wish to lose his 
path with night coming on. Or you may turn east to the 
blue waters of Salisbury's glorious Twin Lakes — Panahe- 
connok and Hokonkamok, or W T ashining and Washinee, 
the "Laughing Water" and the "Smiling Water." North 
of the lakes rises Babes' Hill, east is Miles Mountain and 
bold Tom's Barack. 

Washining and Washinee were the beautiful daughters 
of an old and tyrannical chief who claimed the land between 
the Housatonic and the Hudson: suitors travelled from 
far council-fires, but none were accepted. War was made 
on the chief by a hostile tribe, but the Weatogue band 
were crafty, and the young leader was captured and 

352 




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354 Old Paths of the New England Border 

condemned to death by torture. Each of the sisters secretly- 
fell in love with the captive brave, and brought him food. 
They begged their obdurate father to set him free; finally, 
wild with grief, the sisters confessed to each other their 
secret. The evening arrived before the fateful day of 
torture and no reprieve. Then the dusky maidens pushed 
off their frail canoe into the moonlit waves and sprang into 
the lake together. They say that when the moon is at the 
full an empty canoe is seen floating, it may be on Wash- 
ining, it may be on Washinee ; if you gaze long it will fade 
away, and the stillness is broken only by the hoot of the 
night-owl. 

The Weatogue district or "wigwam place" borders the 
west bank of the Housatonic in Salisbury on the early trail 
joining the Stockbridge wigwams with those of the Schaghti- 
cokes below the village of Kent, traced by the apple-trees 
which have sprung up in the wake of the moccasin; near 
Weatogue 's Council Elm many relics of the tribe have been 
found. Dutcher's Bridge spans the river between the 
Russell farm and Dutcher's on the Canaan ! side. 

It was in 1720 that three men, Dutcher, Knickerbacker, 

1 Canaan on the Housatonic is very lovely with gentle, undulating hills 
encircling its homesteads. The Blackberry River or Bromfoxit, willow- 
fringed, enhances the beauty of the pasture-lands and the railroad 
follows its course, high above, on a terrace of drift. On Canaan summit 
is Lake Mangum. On the river stands the house (1747) of an ironmaster 
pioneer, Squire Samuel Forbes; it is the home of Mrs. Mary Geikie Adam, 
whose illustrated Sketch of Canaan is included in The Connecticut 
Quarterly of April, 1896. The homestead of William Adam was built in 
1808. Canaan Falls possesses a certain grandeur; other cascades among 
the Litchfield Hills are the romantic glade Kent Falls and the Maiden's 
Well, the falls in Roxbury — the native town of Col. Seth Warner, who 
took Crown Point, — and those at New Milford. 

The hill-town of Norfolk owes much to its first minister, one of the 
remarkable men in Litchfield County, and an early educator, the Rev. 
Ammi Ruhamah Robbins; also to the Battells and the Eldridge family. 
It is famous for its unusual privileges in music, the Library, and Eldridge 
Gymnasium. 



Mount Riga in Salisbury 



355 



and Johannes Dyckman, Captain of the Livingston Manor 
company of militia, purchased land of William Gaylord and 
one Noble of New Mil ford, who possessed a grant here. 
The English Puritans came later from Windsor, and Swiss 
and Russian colliers were imported to smelt the rich iron-ore 




Connecticut. 



beds of Salisbury. There was as great excitement on the 
Connecticut border over Ore Hill and Mt. Riga as over the 
California gold-fields in '49. These early settlers have 
bequeathed to Salisbury a varied nomenclature — no other 
township in Connecticut has kept so many Indian names; 



35 6 Old Paths of the New England Border 

the very titles of her mountains, hollows and witching water- 
ways invite you to come and see and wonder, for Salisbury 
on the border is peculiarly beautiful and interesting, and the 
air pure and exhilarating. 

It is still an open question as to whether unique Mount 
Riga was named by the Swiss colliers Mount Rhigi, or 
Riga by the Russians who came to work the Old Furnace 
(the Ball's Forge of 1781) on the mountain. Mount Riga 
combines the attractions of three mountains in one. The 
road to the Old Furnace winds four miles along a sprightly, 
tumbling creek — Wachocastinook or Fell Kill, haunt of 
speckled trout; two thirds of the distance up, the distant 
music of falling water entices you to the edge of the deep 
green ravine. Near the Old Furnace is the Pettee home- 
stead, built by one of the ironmasters associated with 
Coffing and Holley in shipping iron to the United States 
armories for muskets; and from Salisbury iron was made 
the great chain stretched across the Hudson, defying 
British warships. 

It is surprising to find a chain of lakes high up in the air, 
and more surprising to see Riga Lake mountain-locked by 
higher peaks. From Lotus Lodge, the camp of the Hon. 
Donald T. Warner, the effect is startling and like artificial 
scenery, especially when the three encircling mountains — 
Brace (in Connecticut) and Buck (in New York State) and 
the poetical Alandar (of Massachusetts) — are decked in 
Autumn's scarlet and crimson and orange with a hint of 
olive; the pond itself, by reflection, is like a huge strawberry- 
colored bowl; Riga might be called the Lake of the three 
Stales. A road leads from Mount Riga to Bear Mountain, 
the highest peak in the State. The gilded globe on top of a 
monument erected by Robbins Battell of Norfolk is 2390 
feet above tide-water. 

As you enter the centre of Salisbury on the Under 



Ore Hill, Lakeville 357 

Mountain Road, near Ball Brook is the Thomas Ball home- 
stead of 1745, and beyond is the Scoville homestead. 1 On 
your right is the Lion's Head of the Taconic; the Clapp 
house is now Maple Shade Inn. Salisbury's log meeting- 
house 2 was set so that its sill enclosed the stake driven into 
the exact centre of the town. A striking contrast in ar- 
chitecture is the old Bushnell Tavern and the modern 
Scoville Memorial Library. South is the John Churchill 
Cofring homestead, the residence of the Hon. Donald T. 
Warner. An old saying is that the stranger who drinks of 
the crystal springs which feed "The Kettle" will, without 
doubt, return to Salisbury; and he must visit the Indian 
Cave in the Wetauwanchu Mountain but half a mile distant. 
In a house standing under bold Barack Matin , Alexander 
Hamilton studied civil engineering with Samuel Moore, the 
eminent mathematician. 

In 1790 the Litchfield Monitor held this advertisement: 
"Salisbury Fair to be holden at the Meeting House Green 
in said Salisbury on the 13th of April inst., to begin at Sun- 
Rise and continue Three Hays. All persons inclining to 
attend may depend upon Fair Bargains and Civil Usage." 

Wononscopomuc and Wononpakook welcome you at 
Lakeville, formerly Salisbury Furnace; the brown hematite 
is still dug out from a "live pit" in Ore Hill 3 which has been 
worked for almost two centuries, and is shipped to Lime 
Rock district and Canaan for smelting. Ethan Allen had 

1 Residence of Mrs. Carrie Scoville Fisher. 

2 A lot for the first church was the gift of Colonel Robert Walker of 
Stratford opposite the present parsonage. Rev. Jonathan Lee's home- 
lot was the present site of the Stiles house built in 1772. 

3 The story of Ore Hill and the ironmasters is included in Mr. Malcolm 
Day Rudd's Historical Sketch of Salisbury, with an invaluable Note on 
Indian Names by Irvin W. Sanford. This is supplementary to Sanford's 
capital Map of Salisbury. The Connecticut Quarterly in 1904 published 
an illustrated sketch of Lakeville, by Mr. Rudd. 



353 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



iron interests here as well as Robert Livingston, who pur- 
chased the Jabez Swift house of 1773 on Old Town Hill, 
occupied for a time by Mrs. General Montgomery. Here was 
laid out a green and a market-place. From the Hotchkiss 
School on Old Town Hill and from Tory Hill are fine views. 
In Lakeville is the birthplace of Governor Alexander H. 




The Governor Alexander H. Holley House; the Rndd Residence, Lakeville, 

Co>in. 

Holley and the Joshua Porter and Gen. Elisha Sterling 
homesteads. Between the lakes is the Warner homestead, 
and on Wononscopomuc is the Taconic School. 

On leaving Lakeville to pursue your road southward to 
the home of the Schaghticokes in Kent, choose the road 
which enters the historic and beautiful town of Sharon 1 by 

1 The Governor John Cotton Smith house in Sharon is one of the finest 
specimens of architecture of the Georgian period. It is still perfect, 
having been built by skilled Italian workmen imported for the purpose. 
In the garret were discovered family documents interwoven recently into 
Colonial Days and Ways by Miss Helen A. Smith of Sharon. 



Ladder of Mountains, Salisbury 359 

way of Indian Pond or Wequadnach. Under Indian 
Mountain on the Millerton road stood an Indian village, 
where the Moravians established a mission, a fact well-nigh 
forgotten and long neglected. The story of the lake and 
mountain and mission has been told by the Rev. Edward 
Dyer of Sharon in his delightful volume on this northwestern 
corner of Connecticut, Gnadensce, or the Lake of Grace. It 
would be a novel adventure to ascend his " Stairs of 
Gnadensee," climbing mountain after mountain of Old 
Salisbury, a step higher each time from west to east; the 
first stair is Indian Mountain or Poquonnoc, " cleared land"; 
the next Mount Riga, then Bald Peak and Bear, and finally 
Berkshire's grand Dome of the Taconics. 

In Northwestern Connecticut is "Hemlock Hollow," 
where the snow and ice rarely melt. According to a Scat- 
acook legend, the " Hollow" was the torture ground of the 
spirits of bad Indians. The soul of any one who died 
within its shadow could never escape their demon clutches. 
The fell spirits sometimes escaped for short periods and 
raised the fiercest storms. 

THE SCHAGHTICOKES 

At the point in Kent where the Housatonic swerves 
toward Connecticut's west boundary and turns away again, 
ragged Scatacook Mountain rises abruptly above a fertile 
interval — a green shelf as it were — -on which cluster a few 
huts, remnant of the village of the Schaghticoke tribe, 
who sent out one hundred warriors to answer the call of 
Washington. 

These organized a unique Committee of Correspondence 
and Safety between Stockbridge and the Sound, for it is 
said that they were able to communicate intelligence from 
the seaboard by significant Indian whoops or yells from 



360 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



their men stationed along the Housatonie. It is well 
known in Gaylordsville that the Indians often signalled 
members of the tribe who had gone to dig clams and oysters 
at Stratford by bonfires on Pickett Rocks (a high point 
above Ten-Mile-River) and on Straits Mountain and 
Candlewood. 




Schaghticoke or Scatacook Mountain and TJic Housatonie. 
Mohicans from Slickomcko and Wequadnach joined the Sehaghtieokes just 
north on their Reservation. 

From the huts, little paths lead to the spring and the 
hunting-traps. The Indians sell the skins of the rattle- 
snakes, which they hunt in the spring on Scatacook ; Candle- 
wood Mountain has " rattlers ' ' too. Scatacook is smothered 
in arbutus and laurel and in out-of-the way nooks you 
may chance on "the whippoorwill's shoe" as old Abigail 
says the squaws call the pink moccasin flow r er, because it 



Bull's Bridge on the Housatonic 361 

is as shy as the whippoorwill, of which there are many on 
Scatacook. They all go down " lampereeling " for silver 
eels at Eel Rocks or Great Falls at New Milford by inherited 
right. 

The last of the royal line was Eunice Mahwee, a grand- 
child of good Gideon Mahneesman, the first convert at 
Pachgatgoch (1743), the Moravian Mission here. The 
Indian burial-ground is north in Kent on the Raymond 
farm on the old lands of the Reservation, which the Indians 
sold, being indifferent to agriculture. 

Some say the Schaghticokes were Mohicans, some 
Pequots; whence they came is a mystery; these may have 
been of the Iroquois, at all events they doubtless held with 
other tribes the prehistoric tradition that mankind came 
out of caves. A Mohawk chief told a missionary that his 
people "had once dwelt in earth where it was dark and no 
sun did shine. Though they followed hunting they ate 
mice caught with their hands. Ganawagakha (one of 
them) accidently found a hole to get out of the earth; 
he went out; he found a deer which he took back with 
him, it tasted very good ; he found the country above so 
beautiful that their mother brought them all out, and 
then planted corn." 

The Housatonic winds with calm grace past the wild 
Scatacook, then tumbles into cataracts, at Bull's Bridge 
or one might say did tumble, for the mad and delicious 
turbulence of the river here is now held in leash by a fine 
exploit in engineering ; the new dam compels the Housatonic 
to turn far-distant wheels within wheels at Waterbury; 
but alas! lost are the whirling eddies attacked by the Indian 
with his spear, caused by the spirited leap upon leap between 
narrow walls of the mighty stream to reach its goal — the sea. 

When Ensign William Gaylord 1 was granted 1000 acres 



The first William Gaylord or Gaillard (the Gaillards were from 



;62 



Old Paths of the New England Border 




Whemenuck Farm or "Cross Roads." 
Ebenezer Gaylord built this homestead in 1800 for his son Daniel Har- 
vey Gaylord in the event of his marriage. Gaylord residence. 

in New Milford township (some miles south of the home 
of the Sehaghticokes, and the meeting of the Webotuck 
with the Housatonic) he found Old Siacus, one of the tribe, 
living in a hut above The Straits, at what is now Gaylord 's 
bridge; his beloved apple-orchard had been sold out with 
the township by his chiefs, but he was allowed by Ensign 
Gaylord (of the train-band) to stay and enjoy his apple- 
trees, the "Old Siacus orchard." It is related by one of 
the Gaylords that being grateful he attached himself as a 
follower of the family, and, on an Indian uprising, "earned 

Chateau Gaillard in Normandy) came on the Mary and John and signed 
the first land grants in Dorchester. He then went to Windsor with the 
Rev. John Warham, and Widow Gaylord devised twenty acres of land to 
the church of Windsor forever. There exists to-day a town, Gaylord 
by name, in Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, and Virginia. 



Indian Names, Gaylordsville 363 

my grandmother and her child on his back to safety in the 
woods." 

Through the Gaylord home-lot ripples Naromiyock- 
nowhusunkatankschunk, otherwise Deep or Big Brook; 
this name has been handed down by the Gaylords of the 
"Old Red Abbey" homestead. "Grandfather Gaylord" at 
the Cross-Roads jotted down the aboriginal names in his 
note-book. Red Plum Plains, that is the whole valley 
here, is Whemenuck; Cat Rocks is Motompquasuc; Long 
Mountain, Quanictuck; Cedar Hill, entered through the 
horse-shoe bars, is Pawquiak. In the Gaylordsville home- 
stead, Charles Seelye Gaylord, the artist, was born. The 
Gaylord grant included Town Hill, New Milford, where 
the Ingleside School and Christ Church now stand. In the 
earlier Milford deeds, the Housatonic is always " The Great 
River" until 1744, when in a deed by William Sherman, 
father of Roger Sherman, to William Gaylord, the Hous- 
satunnick River is mentioned. l 

The Hon. Orange Merwin, whose house stood at " Merry- 
all," New Milford, travelled on horseback to Washington 
City, when a member of Congress. He writes home to Mr. 
Daniel H. Gaylord at the Cross-Roads (now Gaylordsville) : 

Washington, Feb. 20, 1S26. 
"My dear Friend. — 

"The state of society here, is easy and pleasant, a person 
can associate with such as he chooses — the most stylish and 
extravagant can find others like themselves, whilst the 
more plain, sensible, and prudent, are respected and easily 
assimilate. . . . The utmost ease of manners and 
equality of deportment is shown . . . and no notice 

1 This, "in the Seventeenth year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord 
George the Second over Great Brittain, King Defender of the Faith," 
■etc., is signed in the presence of Abel Wright, Jr., William Gaylord, Roger 
Sherman. The Gaylord deeds are possessed by Mrs. Henry E. Bostwick. 



364 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



is taken of any peculiarity of appearance or character. 
Mr. Adams himself is a plain man with simple Republican 
manners. Mrs. Gaylord may perhaps inquire — how is Mrs. 
Adams? — At the Levees her usual dress is white silk 
flounced with rows of [blurred] a long mantle shawl, hand 
wrought, a head dress of flowrets and hair in ringlets — she 




The Hon. Elijah Boardman House, of 1793, New Milford on the Housatonic. 
Residence of Mrs. George 11';;/. Wright. 

is elegant, easy and graceful, a very interesting woman — 
here you may find beauty and fashion with all their charms. 
. . . You talk and chat with anyone, sip a cup of tea, partake 
of viands . . . carried through the crowd by servants, 
and finding yourself at length weary, quite pleased, — if 
small talk, fine bows and pretty faces are calculated to 
please you, — sentiment here has nothing to do; if you are 
well dressed and can say some simple thing in an easv way, 
you pass off for a Gentleman, the Ladies smiling upon you 
at every step — " 



The Lake Country of Connecticut 365 

Again Mr. Merwin writes : 

"Our Mess consists of Mallary, Waters and Swift of 
Vermont, Wright, Vinton and Woods of Ohio, Wing of 
Michigan and Barker and myself of Conn. . . . The 
house was engaged about ten days in deciding whether 
the damage done by a negro in the line before New Orleans 
should be paid for or not; in the debate Genl. Jackson was 
represented a tyrant, a monster, whilst the next man would 
describe him as a hero, a patriot, a benefactor — Cuffe in the 
meantime would be forgotten for hours together — this was 
no matter however as the speeches were designed for the 
good people at home and not for Cuffe. . . ." * 

On leaving New Milford, where was built the first bridge 
across the Housatonic, one may see the remaining lakes 
of the Lake Country by taking the road to Litchfield, which 
skirts Lake Waramaug set in steep wooded heights, such 
as remind one of the beautiful Highlands of the Hudson. 
Lake Bantam at Litchfield, of some 900 acres, is the largest 
in the Stale. 

> Hitherto unpublished. By the courtesy of Miss Jeannette Gaylord. 



LITCHFIELD, 1720-1724 

"There were a good many cogs in the mighty wheel which turned the- 
machinery of the American Revolution. The swords of Washington, Greene 
and Lafayette — the eloquence of Adams, Henry and Lee — the pens of 
Franklin, Jefferson and Jay — were equally necessary, the good work was 
a hieved not by an individual but by a multitude. Peyton Randolph was 
not the only eminent Crown officer who forced a bill of attainder — Putnam 
was not the only farmer who left one horse in the furrow, and mounted the 
other in his farmer's frock to speed the battle muster, . . . the mechanic 
who gave his all — his labor, and sat up night and day to forge the pike- 
peak . . . and the maiden who stopped not to weep over her slain lover, but 
han led up cartridges and carried water to the living soldiers . . . were 
each but one among a thousand." — Randall's Life of Jefferson. 




I ANY a New England mile 
lies between Old Ports- 
mouth and Salem by 
the sea and Litchfield on 
the west border, yet the 
stranger is conscious of a 
kinship between the stately 
town among the hills and 
the seaports. There is a 
certain grace of architec- 
ture and dignity common 
to the homes of colonial 
days, a kinship of motive 
and action which speak, 
although the setting may 
sharply differ; on the coast 
the merchant houses stood 
often at the head of a lane leading up from the owner's 
wharf, or even on a cow-path ; in Connecticut the lay of 
the land chosen by the settlers is generally high, and 

367 



The Bcecher Elm. 



368 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Litchfield's two old-fashioned, lovable, livable grass-rib- 
boned streets are of double width, and cross at right angles 
on a lofty plateau, crowned by many an elm, " the most 
beautiful vegetable of the Temperate Zone." At neigh- 
borly distances, in strong simplicity the homesteads 
stand flanked by luxuriant apple-blooms; the wayside is 




Denting Homestead, " The Lindens," North Street. 
Erected I/qo-j. William Sprats, Architect {London) for Captain Julius 
Denting A. A. C. C, "Eastern Division," Continental Army. Resi- 
dence of the Hon. J. Deming Perkins. 

yellow with buttercups and butterflies, and the wind blows 
fresh from Mount Tom and his brother hills, across the 
pasture-lands, ruffling Bantam Lake and the gentle river. 

One of several unusually fine houses of the Georgian 
period on lower North Street is architecturally correct in 
every part. It was built for the merchant Julius Deming 



:JM 







" Town ##/ Street " (South St.) Litchfield. 
The Elihu Harrison house, residence of Mr. James Parsons Woodruff; 

and the residence of the Hon. George M. Woodruff. 
24 369 



37o Old Paths of the New England Border 

(formerly of Lyme) by William Sprats, a London architect 
acting with the King's forces; he had chosen to remain in 
America, and the first house of his design was that of Gen- 
eral Champion at East Haddam. Certain houses on the 
North River are known as "Sprats" houses. 

There is a striking analogy between the reflections of a 
"yellow haired little rascal" in Portsmouth and young 
Oliver Wolcott of Litchfield (Judge Oliver Wolcott, Sec- 
retary of the Treasury and Governor of Connecticut) on 
the strange gloom of a New England Sunday, " when people 
who were prosperous, natural and happy on Saturday 
became the most rueful of human beings in the brief space 
of twelve hours. ... It was merely old Puritan 
austerity cropping out once a week." You remember the 
description of the "Bad Boy" — Tom Bailey (Aldrich) : 

"It is Sunday morning . . . the deep gloom which 
has settled over everything set in like a heavy fog on 
Saturday evening. At seven o'clock my grandfather comes 
smilelessly down stairs. He is dressed in black, and looks as 
if he had lost all his Mends during the night. Miss Abigail, 
likewise in black, looks as if she were prepared to bury them 
and not indisposed to enjoy the ceremony: . . . My 
grandfather looks up and inquires in a sepulchral voice if I 
am ready for Sabbath school — I like the Sabbath school; 
there are bright young faces there at all events. When I 
get out in the sunshine alone, I draw a long breath; I would 
turn a somersault up against Neighbor Penhallow's newly 
painted fence if I had n't my best trousers on, so glad am I 
to escape from the oppressive atmosphere of the Nutter 
House." 

Oliver Wolcott, Jr., says: 

"Sunday was to me the most uncomfortable day of the 
week, from the confinement in dress and locomotion which 
it imposed on me after Prayers and Breakfast. I was 



Oliver Wolcott, Jr. 371 

taken by my mother to a Wash Tub and thoroughly 
scrubbed with Soap and Water from head to foot. I was 
then dressed in my Sunday Habit which, as I was growing fast, 
was almost constantly too small. My usual dress at other 
times was a thin pair of Trousers and a Jacket of linsey- 
woolsey; and I wore no shoes except in frosty weather. On 
Sunday morning I was robed in Scarlet Cloth Coat with 
Silver Buttons, a white Silk Vest, white Cotton Stockings, 
tight Shoes, Scarlet Cloth Breeches with silver buttons to 
match my Coat, a close Stock, Ruffles at the Breast of my 
Jacket, and a cocked Beaver Hat with gold laced Band. 
In this attire I was marched to the Meeting House with 
orders not to soil my clothes, and to sit still, and by no 
means to play during meeting time. . . . Mr. Champion 1 
not infrequently exchanged Sunday services with the 
neighboring Parson, whose performances were most un- 
comfortable ... in the afternoon they frequentlv 
exceeded two hours. As I was not allowed to sleep during 
meeting time, my sufferings were frequently extreme. 

" After service new toils awaited me. Our Sunday was in 
fact the old Jewish Sabbath, continued from sunset to 
sunset. In the interval from the end of services in the 
Meeting House until sunset, my father read to the family 
from the Bible or some printed sermon, and when he was 
done, I was examined by my mother in the Assembly's. 
Shorter Catechism. I learned to recite this in self-defense; 
and I comprehended it then as well as at any time after- 
wards. When this task was ended, I was allowed to resume 
my ordinary Habit. It exhilarates my spirits, even at 
present, to think of the ecstacies I enjoyed when I put on 
my Jacket and Trousers and quit my Stockings and Shoes. 



' An historic event in the old Litchfield meeting house was the re- 
markable prayer of Parson Champion on the going out of the Revolu- 
tionary troops. One of the greatest of American orations, The Age of 
Homespun, was delivered by Horace Bushnell at the Centennial of 
Litchfield County; the poem was also by a native of Litchfield, the Rev- 
John Pierpont, and the address by Judge Samuel Church. 



37 2 Old Paths of the New England Border 

I used to run to the Garden Lawn or into the orchard; 
I would leap, run, lie down and roll on the grass, in 
short play all the gambols of a fat calf when loosened from 
confinement." * 

Litchfield, as the frontier village of Bantam (so-called 
from the Bantam Indians), had five palisaded houses. A 
pioneer, Captain Jacob Griswold, at work alone in the fields 
west of the present Court-house in 1772, w T as pinioned by 
two Indians, carried into the Canaan wilderness, and bound 
hand and foot. Griswold cleverly disengaged his feet while 
his captors slept and, seizing their guns in spite of pinioned 
arms, took the home trail. The Indians overtook him after 
a time; he pointed one of his pieces and they fell back: thus 
he travelled until sunset brought him near Bantam, when he 
fired and called the villagers to the rescue. 

Litchfield was at the crossing of many post-roads and at 
the opening of the Revolution became an important depot 
of supplies; soon after the new County of Litchfield was 
established in 175 1, Oliver Wolcott was elected High 
Sheriff. He came to reside in Litchfield, building a house 
on South Street, on land bequeathed him by his father, 
Major-General Roger Wolcott, poet and Governor, and 
first on the seating roll of the church at East Windsor. 
From this house (the oldest standing in Litchfield) he 
went out to the Continental Congress; a signer of the Dec- 
laration of Independence, he was also Major-General, Brig- 
adier-General, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and 
took part in the battle of Saratoga. Governor Oliver 
Wolcott held more offices than any other of the famous 
Wolcotts, whose ancestral seat in the "Old Home" is 
Galdon Manor, and the unsullied motto on their knightly 
arms — accustomed to swear in the words of no master. 



1 Litchfield Book of Days, edited by George C. Boswell. Alex. B. 
Shumway, Litchfield. 




At the Door of the Wolcott Mansion, Litchfield, Conn. 

Elizabeth Wolcott Merchant and Livingston Talhnadge Mer- 
chant, great-great-great-grandchildren of Oliver Wolcott and 
great-great-great-great-grandchildren of William Floyd, each 
a Signer of the Declaration of Independence. The house 

was erected in 1753 on "Town Hill Street" by (Hirer 11 ol- 
cott. Birthplace of (diver Wolcott, Jr., Secretary of the 
Treasury, and of Frederick Wolcott. The home of Miss 
Alice Wolcott. 



?73 



374 Old Paths of the New England Border 

Ursula Wolcott, a sister of Oliver, holds a unique position 
in American annals as the daughter, sister, wife, mother, 
and aunt of Governors of Connecticut: she became the 
wife of Governor Matthew Griswold of Blackhall, Lyme. 
When the young and retiring Matthew Griswold was Gov- 
ernor Roger Wolcott's private secretary, he fell desperately 
in love with his daughter, sweet Mistress Ursula, which 
she divined. One day as he met her on the stairs, scarcely 
daring to lift his eves to the beautiful creature of his dreams, 
she remarked mischievously, "What did you say, Mr. 
Griswold?" — "Xoth — nothing, Miss Wolcott," — "Well, it 
is time you did." 

Revolutionary days were most exciting in Litchfield and 
particularly at the Wolcott house: soon after the Sons of 
Liberty tore down the statue of George III., Oliver Wolcott 
transported it to Litchfield, and Madam Wolcott, her 
daughters, the Marvins, and other neighbors moulded it into 
bullets in the Wolcott orchard; Oliver Wolcott, Jr., at 
nineteen was quartermaster and had the difficult task of 
collecting supplies and forwarding them to the army; when 
the infamous Tryon descended on Danbury and Norwalk, 
young Oliver and the veteran hunter Paul Peck went out 
with the last few men capable of bearing arms in Litchfield. 
Colonel Elisha Sheldon of North Street was in the heat of 
battle with his famous Second Light Dragoons in which 
Major Tallmadge commanded a troop. Yet in spite of the 
depletion of Litchfield of able-bodied men, the crops were 
gathered in by patriot women and boys. At the crucial 
moment of need, when General Washington asked more 
supplies of "Brother Jonathan" Trumbull, he was not 
disappointed, and watched with joy the wagon-trains from 
Hartford and Litchfield wdnd up the hill at New- 
burgh, at the appointed moment promised by Governor 
Trumbull. 



" Uncle App." Greets Washington 375 

One of the Kilbourn 1 family, Appleton Kilbourn (ad- 
mitted a freeman of Litchfield in 1762), was a methodical 
farmer and probably had never been ten miles from home. 



* — " )T T 


■JL" '\nflnn 


re .*• 








«■■ j|l®i' ; : 


IIUHJll' 1 





7/u- feome 0/ Judge James Gould, North Street, built by Colonel Elisha 
Sheldon in 1760; in a small building which stood in the garden, sessions 
of the Law School were held. When Samuel Sheldon kept tavern here, 
General Washington spent a night in the northeast room. For many 
years the summer home of Professor James Mason Hoppin of New 
Haven. Now owned by Mrs. James Mason Hoppin, Jr. 

To church to mill was the extent of his travels. One 
pleasant September morning in 1 780, " Uncle App. " mounted 
Dobbin and set out for East Mill w T ith a load of grain. On 
reaching the old tavern at County House corner, a friend 

1 7 he Kilbourn Genealogy, by Payne Kenyon Kilbourne. 



3/6 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



called out: "Hi! Uncle App. — you're a leetle too late again 
as usual." — "Why — what has happened now?" — "Gen- 
eral Washington and his suite have just left for the west- 
ward, there they go" ; in an instant Dobbin was seen dashing 
off at full speed down West Hill — the bags bounding with 
every jump, and the rider's long skirts streaming, till the 
front of the procession was gained. Suddenly wheeling 
his horse Uncle App. confronted the chieftain face to face. 
"Are you General Washington?" — "I am, Sir." — "God 
Almighty bless you!" waving his hat in the air, and next 
moment he quietly pursued his way to the mill. 

Washington passed through 
Litchfield on his road between 
West Point and Hartford more 
than once. The conferences be- 
tween Washington and the 
French officers were held inland, 
as it was unsafe on the coast. In 
Washington's first visit to Litch- 
field, accompanied by Hamilton, 
they stayed at the home of Oliver 
Wolcott; on another occasion, 
stopping at the Sheldon Tavern 
on North Street, Washington en- 
tered through one of the most 
beautiful doorways in the land, 
to which he was attended by his 
horse-guards. This house, built by 
Colonel Elisha Sheldon, is best 
known as the Judge Gould or 
Professor James Hoppin house; 
for a time the residence of Gen- 
eral Uriah Tracy, United States 
Senator, it was long the home of 



LANDMARKS: South St.: East side— 
The Noyes Memorial Building con- 
taining the Litchfield and Wolcott 
Memorial Libraries and Collection 
of the Litchfield Historical Society; 
a Memorial to Mrs. William Curtis 
Noyes by Mr. John A. Vanderpoel; 
D. A. R. Memorial Window to the 
Litchfield County Patriots of the Re- 
volution, designed by Frederic Crown- 
inshield; unveiled and presented 
by the Mary Floyd Tallmadge Chap- 
ter to the Litchfield Historical Society, 
on its semi-centennial celebration, 
July 5, 1907. This building stands 
on the site of the Ebenezer Marsh 
house U759)- Ancient elm used for 
sign post to present date. St. Michael's 
Episcopal Church. Phineas Minor 
house (1819) Benjamin Hanks- 
Abraham C. Smith house (1780) Dr. 
Alanson Abbey house, residence Wil- 
liam H. Sanford, Esq. Gov. Oliver 
Wolcott homestead (1753)- Reynold 
Marvin house (1773) ; King's attorney 
in the reign of George III.; enlarged 
by Phineas Bradley, and occupied by 
Gideon H. Hollister, historian and 
Minister to Hayti; Belden residence. 
On the southeast corner of Gallows 
Lane and Lake St. is a well, mark- 
ing the home of Nathaniel Woodruff 
(conveyed to him by John French 
in 1721), whose property was largely 
at South Farms, now Morris. Site 
of the supposed birthplace of Ethan 
Allen now occupied by Thomas 



JHBHBMI 







■? £> 



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s& 



J/' 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



Aylmar house; others say he was 
born in a house on the West Goshen 
road. Abner Baldwin- John Phelps 
house ( 1794). On South Street, west 
side, is a strikingly handsome house 
built by Gen. Elijah Wadsworth 
(1799), enlarged by Governor Oliver 
Wolcott the second; residence of 
Colonel George B. Sanford. The 
Chief Justice Charles B. Andrews 
place. Lyman J. Smith - Gen. 
Woodruff house, residence of Mrs. 
John H. Hubbard. Judge Tapping 
Reeve-Ogden house (i773)i res- 
idence of Charles H. Woodruff , Esq. 
George C. Woodruff house, on site 
of the Major Moses Seymour house 
(1735). residence Judge George M. 
Woodruff; additions made by Major 
Seymour during the Revolution to 
contain supplies. Ozias Seymour 
homestead (1807), residence Hon. 
Morris Seymour; birthplace Chief- 
Justice Origen Storrs Seymour and 
Judge E. W. Seymour. Moses 
Seymour, Jr.-Josiah G. Beckwith 
house. Phelps Opera House on site 
of Catlin's Tavern; famous gather- 
ings held in the Assembly room; in 
1807, Jerome Bonaparte and his 
wife drew up with coach and four. 
Martin Van Buren and Adams 
lodged here. West Park or Training 
Green. North Street: Phoenix Bank 
building (1815). Old Whipping-post 
elm, at County Jail. Thomas 
Sheldon-Tallmadge house (1775)1 
residence of Mrs. Emily Noyes 
Vanderpoel; birthplace of Frederick 
A. Tallmadge. Sheldon-Gould house 
( 1760). Allen Butler house, residence 
of Frederick Deming, Esq. Dr. 
Daniel Sheldon - Theron Beach 
homestead (1783). long the home 
of Mrs. N. Rochester Child, property 
of Captain Edgar Beach Van Winkle. 
Perkins house, " The Glebe, " on 
site of Parson Champion house, 
property of Mrs. William Woodville 
Rockwell. Congregational Parsonage 
on site of James Brace place. Old 
Beecher well on the estate of Henry 



the eminent jurist, Judge James 
Gould; he was associated with 
Judge Tapping Reeve in Litch- 
field's celebrated Law-School. 

On his ride between Litchfield 
and Hartford, doubtless many 
impending questions were settled 
by Washington. The time of 
Washington's absence at Hart- 
ford in September, 1780, was that 
chosen by Benedict Arnold to 
betray West Point into the hands 
of the enemy. This very journey 
of Washington was also the in- 
direct means of the capture of 
Major Andre, first aid-de-camp of 
Clinton; as, in the disguise of a 
countryman, while hastening on 
with the fatal plans in his stock- 
ings, he was arrested by a small 
band of patriot farmers belong- 
ing to the strict patrol corps 
formed to insure Washington's 
safe journey to Hartford. 

Count Jean Axel de Fersen, 1 
aid-de-camp of Rochambeau, 
gives an interesting description of 
Washington on the occasion of 
this conference at Hartford, in a 
letter to his father from Newport. 

" About fifteen days ago I 
went to Hartford with Mon- 



' The same Count Axel de Fersen who played an interesting part in the 
Prench Revolution and assisted the King in his flight to Varennes. 



Washington and Rochambeau 



379 




The Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge— William Curtis Noyes House. 
Built by Thomas Sheldon in 1775. Residence of a Great-Granddaughter of 
'Mary Floyd Tallmadge — Mrs. Emily Noyes Vandefpoel. Colonel 
Tallmadge, the friend of Washington and Lafayette, the first treasurer 
of the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati was one of the picturesque 
figures of liis time; in the southeast room — the Colonel's office — every 
morning his wife used to powder his queue. 

sieur de Rochambeau. There 
were only six of us ; the general, 
the admiral, Viscount Rocham- 
beau (the general's son), a 
superior officer of the engineer- 
ing corps, and two aid-de- 
camps. An interview was 
arranged between Washington 
and Rochambeau. I was sent 
on slightly in advance, to an- 
nounce Rochambeau's approach, 
and thus had an opportunity to 
studv this most illustrious man 



R. Jones, Esq. Lynde Lord-William 
Deming house | 1771); summer res- 
idence of Mrs. E. Le R. Ferry. 
Alexander Catlin-Dr. Henry W. Buel 
house. Dr. Buel founded the Spring 
Hill Sanatorium. Reuben Webster 
house (1786), summer residence of 
Mrs. W. H. Maxwell Deming- 
Perkins house. Smith-Asa Bacon 
house, Coit residence. West Street* 
formerly " Old Meeting-House St.', 
Eli Smith house (1780), Kenney res- 
idence; here about 1800, Toby 
Cleaves cured the wigs of Litch- 
field " notables." Luke Lewis house 
(1781), property of Miss Phelps, 
built by John Collins, son of Rev. 
Timothy Collins, first minister. 
David Buel house (1787), now 



3 8o 



Old Paths of the New England Border 



of our century. His majestic, 
handsome countenance is 
stamped with an honesty and 
a gentleness which correspond 
well with his moral qualities. 
He looks like a hero; 
he is very cold, speaks little, 
but is frank and courteous in 
manner; a tinge of melancholy 
affects his whole bearing which 
renders him, if possible, more 
interesting. His suite outnum- 
bered ours ; the Marquis de 
Lafayette ; General Knox of 
the artillery; Monsieur de Gau- 
vion, a French officer of en- 
gineers: and six aid-de-camps 
besides an escort of twenty- two 
dragoons — indispensable, as he 
bristling with enemies. During 
the two generals and admirals 
were closeted together all day. The Marquis de Lafayette 
assisted as interpreter, as General Washington does not 
speak French, nor understand it. They separated, quite 
charmed with one another, at least they said so. It was on 
leaving Hartford that General Washington discovered 
Arnold's treacherv. He was one of their most heroic gen- 
erals, had been twice wounded, and always conducted him- 
self bravely." 

In the meantime Andre was carried a prisoner to North 
Castle, where Major Benjamin Tallmadge penetrated his 
disguise, for he saw by his manner of turning his heel as he 
restlessly paced the room that he was a military man. 
Eventually Major Tallmadge was appointed to attend 
Andre on the last fateful clay at Tappan. Tallmadge 
writes: "I became so deeply attached to Major Andre, 



United States Hotel; ball given to 
Lafayette, 1824. Gen. Timothy 
Skinner-Hon. Seth P. Beers house. 
( 1787), Webster-Candee house 
Milestone (1787) at Elm Ridge 
placed by Jedediah Strong. Birth- 
place of Horace Bushnell, son of 
Ensign Bushnell, at Bantam, on 
site of residence of Mrs. L. S. 
Kilbourn. 

References: Woodruff's Litchfield. 
Kilbourne's Litchfield. Tlie Chroni- 
cles of a Pioneer School. Compiled 
by Emily Noyes Vanderpoel. Litch- 
field Book of Days. Dwight's Trav- 
els. Barber's Connecticut. " Mary 
Floyd Tallmadge," by Elizabeth C. 
Buel in Chapter Skctclics of Connect- 
icut D. A. R. " Poganuc People," 
by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Statis- 
tical Account of the Towns of Litch- 
field County, by James Morris, Jr., 
founder of Morris Academy, 1790. 
A Record of Ins riptions upon tlte 
Tombstones of Litchfield and Morris, 
Ct., by Dwight C. Kilbourne; The 
Champion Genealogy by Francis 
Bacon Trowbridge. 

had to cross a country 
our stay in Hartford 



Colonial Treasures 381 

that I can remember no instance where my affections were 
so fully absorbed in any man." 

After the war, Colonel Tallmadge brought his bride, Mary 
Floyd, daughter of General William Floyd, a Signer, to 
Litchfield. His deA r otion to the memory of Washington is 
shown even by the additions to the house he purchased, 
which resemble the wings at Alt. Vernon, and differ dis- 
tinctly from the general architecture of Litchfield. The 
miniature of Mary Floyd Tallmadge, the patron saint of the 
Litchfield Daughters of the American Revolution, is in 
the possession of Mrs. Neely (Mary Floyd Delafield), wife of 
the Bishop of Maine. In the painting 1 by Earl, she is of a 
stately appearance with a head-dress of ostrich feathers 
and pearls. Her hand was sought by James Madison. 
The Tallmadge house is now the home of her great-grand- 
daughter Mrs. Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, who compiled the 
history of the celebrated girls' school of Litchfield, con- 
ducted by Miss Sarah Pierce. 

A letter to Colonel Tallmadge from Washington is in the 
unusually interesting collection of the Litchfield Historical 
Society; a chair from Ml. Vernon given to Governor Wol- 
cott by Washington, also a chair from the Bradley Tavern 
in which Washington sat; the MS. of the first law reports 
of the U. S. by Ephraim Kirby ; acorns from the oak at Fort 
Jedediah Huntington, Valley Forge; a silk bonnet sent from 
Paris by Margaret Fuller to Mrs. Gabriel Greeley (nee 
Cheney); Colonial money, etc., collection of W. L. Ransom 
— silhouettes, egg-shell china, etc., endowed with traditions 
of Connecticut families. 

The incident of several famous Tories being sent here 

1 The paintings by Ralph Earl of Mary Floyd Tallmadge and children, 
and of Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, and son are in the possession of 
.Mrs. Edward W. Seymour of Litchfield and New York. There is also 
an animated pencil sketch by Colonel Trumbull of Colonel Tallmadge. 



382 Old Paths of the New England Border 

for safe-keeping is recalled by a genuine Franklin stove, 
in possession of Judge George M. Woodruff, and brought 
to Litchfield soon after the Revolution. One of these 
royalists was William Franklin, estranged from his father 
by a determined loyalty to the crown ; he was the last royal 
Governor of New Jersey being appointed by Lord Fairfax. 
It is said that Litchfield did not know what to do with this 
distinguished prisoner and allowed him to escape. Another 
was David Matthews, royalist Mayor of New York, who 
imported the first pleasure carriage to Litchfield. 

Chief-Justice Tapping Reeve also served in the Revolu- 
tion; Lafayette paid him a visit in his Litchfield house, 
which is of an hospitable architecture; above the stairs 
hangs the fire-bucket marked "T. Reeve 1." which in Colo- 
nial towns is the hall-mark of the country gentry, who 
composed the fire-brigade. Judge Reeve's brasses were all 
made in Litchfield, and like many country Squires his 
law-office adjoined his house. He started his law-school in 
1784 and was principal for forty years. Nearly all the 
professional men 1 of prominence of that day were modelled 
under his eye. He married the sister of Aaron Burr, who 
lived with them for some time. The garden has many 
blossoms of the old garden planted by Miss Ogden; a deep 
red rose bush by the well has a famous rose similar to the 
American Beauty- 
Aaron Burr was a handsome youth of twenty when he 
came hither to study law under Judge Reeve, his brother- 
in-law. He arrived direct from Fairfield, where he had 

1 A few of the graduates of Judge Reeve's law-school were John M. 
Clayton of Delaware, Colonel Theophilus Ransom of Lyme, Benjamin 
II. Rutledge, Chief Justice Richard Skinner, Governor of Vermont, Levi 
Woodbury, Marcus Morton. When John C. Calhoun attended the law- 
school it is said that he helped set out the elm trees on Prospect Street in 
front of the Reuben Webster house; "Calhoun held the trees and Webster 
threw in the dirt." 




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Old Paths of the New England Border 



met the beautiful Dorothy Quincy of Boston, at the house 
of his favorite cousin Thaddeus Burr. She was passing 
the summer at the home of Mr. Burr, her father's friend, 
under the chaperonage of Mistress Lydia Hancock, an aunt 
of her betrothed; the "rebel" John Hancock had contrived 




The Old Bradleyville Tavern, Bantam, Litchfield. 

Stages from Poughkeepsie stopped on their way to New Haven. In Dr. 
BeecJier's day, weekly prayer-meet i tigs were held here, and here he con- 
ceived the idea of his "Six Temperance Sermons ." Now owned by 
Mrs. Alary Sedgwick Coe, a cousin of the distinguished General John 
Sedgwick of the Army of the Potomac, who was born not far away a* 
"Cornwall Holloiv." 

to elude the red-coats and escort sweet Dorothy in his 
coach and four, far from war-turmoil at Boston, to serene 
Fairfield on the Sound. When "Cousin Aaron," the gay 
cavalier was presented to the stately and coquettish Miss 
Quincy, the pleasure was mutual, and " consequences dis- 



The Beechers in Litchfield 385 

astrous to Hancock's peace of mind might have ensued had 
not the safe counsels of elders prevailed over youthful 
passion and folly." 1 In a letter to a friend, Miss Dorothy 
complains that Aunt Lydia would not allow them to pass 
a moment alone in each other's society; she finds Aaron 
Burr "a handsome young man with a pretty fortune." 
That he never refused a flirtation has been said, yet his 
conduct on this occasion was exemplary; he fled temp- 
tation, and made his adieux leaving shortly for Litchfield. 
The last festivity in the hospitable Burr mansion was the 
wedding of John Hancock, President of the Continental 
Congress, for in 1779, the house was burned to the ground 
by command of the relentless General Tryon. 

Dr. Lyman Beecher lived on the corner of North and 
Prospect streets, and many are the stories of his remarkable 
family; "the world is made up of saints, sinners, and 
Beechers," is an old saying. In a letter to Mrs. Ensign H. 
Kellogg of Pittsfield, Dr. Holmes refers to Mrs. Stowe: 

" Boston, Oct. 27, 1872. 
" My dear Mrs. Kellogg: — 

" ... I was not a little pleased that you and Mrs. 
Stowe agreed in a charitable opinion about such a heretic 
as I am — The real truth is, those Beechers are so chock- 
full of good, sound, square-stepping, strong-hearted human- 
ity that they can't shut the door of their sympathy against 
Jew and Gentile — I find everywhere except among the 
older sort of people (you and I must be old too in time, but 
even I am not old) — and the smaller kind of human potatoes, 
— there is much more real ' Catholicism ' — much more feel- 
ing that we are all in the same boat in a fog, than there 
was when I was studying Calvin's Essence of Christianity 



1 From the charming monograph of Miss Quincy of Litchfield, a great 
grand-niece of Madame Hancock — Two Colonial Dames, "Dorothy Q." and 
Dorothy Quincy Hancock. Read by the author before the " Colonial 
Dames of America." 
25 



386 Old Paths of the New England Border 

in the Assembly Catechism. So I can understand that a 
couple of good-hearted and large-souled women manage 
to tolerate the existence of such a person as I am, — but to 
be spoken of so very kindly as you say Mrs. Stowe spoke 
of me, made me color up so, that I thought at first you had 
written on pink paper — it was the reflection of my blushes." 

The life at the Beecher parsonage was typical of a New 
England country town. Miss Catherine Beecher describes 
that remarkable occasion, the minister's wood-spell. 

" On some bright winter day, every person in the parish 
who chooses to do so sends in a sled load of wood as a 
present. . . . For nearly a week our kitchen was busy as 
an ant-hill . . . the cake was placed in large stone pots 
and earthenware jars and set around the kitchen fire and 
duly turned until the proper lightness was detected . . . 
and the bushels of doughnuts I boiled over the kitchen 
fire! . . . When the auspicious day arrived, the snow 
was thick, smooth and well packed for the occasion . . . 
and the whole town was astir . . . runners arrived 
with the news of gathering squadrons — Mount Tom was 
coming with all the farmers, Bradley ville also, Chestnut 
Hill and the North and South Settlements. . . . The 
boys heated the flip-irons, and passed around the cider and 
flip, while Aunt Esther and the daughters were as busy in 
serving the doughnuts, cake and cheese. And such a 
mountainous wood-pile as arose in our Yard never before 
was seen in ministerial donation!" 

The Beecher house has been moved but the old well is 
still in its place and the Beecher elm. 

Beecher Corner is still shaded by the elm with the ring 
to which Dr. Beecher hitched his horse. After meeting, 
he generally forgot his horse with proverbial absent-mind- 
edness, of which many a tale has been handed down by 



388 Old Paths of the New England Border 

his contemporaries. Often when fishing o' week-days, a 
mile away, at the Little Pond, in his boat, the "Yellow 
Perch," the bell would summon him ashore to a forgotten 
service, and he would make a hasty dash up-town behind 
his pastoral nag. At one unlooked for summons it is re- 
lated that a fish dropped from his coat-tails as he mounted 
the pulpit-stairs. One of his Deacons on a fine spring day 
found the Doctor trout-fishing. "Dr. Beecher, how can 
you, a minister of the Gospel, enjoy fishing! it isn't even 
respectable." "Then I '11 make it respectable, Sir," replied 
the Doctor as he made another cast of the line. 1 

Another absent-minded man, much admired by Dr. 
Beecher, was Judge Tapping Reeve: 2 a valuable legal docu- 
ment for which his family searched all night was discovered 
stuffed into the bung of the vinegar barrel. 

The era when flourished Miss Pierce's school for young 
ladies (some three thousand were educated by her between 
1792 and 1833) was the most picturesque in the history of 
old Town Street. Red coaches came and went, swinging 
through Litchfield with cracking of whips and rattling 
wheels from Hartford, Poughkeepsie, Boston, or New York. 
Or, one might see a private coach and pair setting off with 
some Litchfield Honorablcs to Philadelphia or Washington 
in powdered queues and wrist ruffles, whenever sessions of 
any consequence in legal or political crises were held. 

It was a pretty sight on a spring morning to witness the 
flutter at Miss Pierce's school as, at the sound of flute and 
flageolet, young ladies, in ringlets and wide hoop-petti- 
coats, started out on their promenade. One had just 
dropped her music practice, others had been studying the 
graces of deportment or designing elaborate colored his- 



1 Anecdotes of Two Bcechcrs, by Clarence Deming, a native of Litchfield. 

2 Dr. Lyman Beecher once said : "Oh, Judge Reeve, what a man he was! 
When I get to heaven and meet him there what a shaking of hands there 

will be. " 



Miss Pierce's School, Litchfield 



589 



torical charts for which the school was noted. And doubt- 
less one might discover under glass in almost every State 
of the Union, one of the exquisite samplers embroidered by 
a scholar of Miss Pierce's school. 

After a half mile the ranks of the procession would break 
and the walk change to a stroll in the company of the young 
gentlemen of Judge Reeve's law-school, the picturesque 
effect being enhanced by the pink jackets of the students 
from the South. Whenever the young ladies went rowing 




< f ¥W§S 






* / 



■X 






The Summer Residence of Frank L. Underwood, Esq., of New York, on the 
site of Miss Pierce's Scliool, Xortli Street, Litchfield. 

on Bantam River, or acted the plays written by their 
preceptress in good Johnsonese, it was also with the assist- 
ance of the law-school. 

"My mother told me," said Mrs. B. of Litchfield, "that 
when she came here to live there were six young ladies 
in the Wolcott family; the law-school was just opposite 
and the students would watch to catch a glimpse of the 
beautiful Miss Wolcotts." It is said that when one of the 



39° Old Paths of the New England Border 

Wolcott family was shining at Washington, the British 
Ambassador remarked to General Uriah Tracy, "Your 
countrywoman would be admired at St. James"; to which 
General Tracy replied, " Why, sir, she is admired even on 

Litchfield Hill." An aged French gentleman, Count S , 

who was a student at the law school at the time his family 
was exiled in the First Revolution, called upon Mrs. Stowe 
at Paris; he was most enthusiastic over society in Litchfield, 
which he declared "the most charming in the world." 

After all Litchfield is but little changed comparatively. 
The modern homestead blends with the mellow charms of 
elderly roofs in the happiest manner, especially in the case 
of such Colonial houses as those of Miss Quincy, or the 
Underwood summer home on North Street. 

One discovers a simplicity and stateliness in the hospi- 
talities of Litchfield carried down from the past, an aroma 
of the period of leisurely grace, when the minuet and archery 
were in favor. Even in the age when we had little leisure 
for the social graces, and log-huts and homespun were the 
chief products of the New England border, Colonel Francis 
Lovelace wrote in a private letter to King Charles: "I 
find some of these people have the breeding of courts, and 
I cannot conceive how it is acquired." 



uJOff- 





;gi 



INDEX 



Abbey, Dr. Alanson, 376 

Abbot, Archbishop, 106 

Abbott, Rev. Abiel, mi 

Abenakis, the, 177, 188 

Adam, Mary Geikie, 354 

Adam, William. 354 

Adams, Mass., 330 

Adams, John Coleman, 351 

Adams, John Quincy, 3(14 

Adams, Dr. Lucius, 223 

Addison, Joseph, 226 

Agassiz, 164 

Albany, 10, 158, 177, 178, 203, 204, 

204, 293, 204, 33 8 - 340. 343 

Albany Road, the (Deerfield), 59, 

173. "" c 93 
Albany Road, the (Lenox). 288 

Aldrich, T. B., 123, 267, 277 282, 

284 
Alford, 217 
Algonquins, the, 181 

Allen, Colonel, 340 

Allen, Edward, 1 70 

Allen, Ethan, iSS, 302, 357, 376 

Allen, Heman, ^t, 

Allen, Samuel, 1 70 

Allen, Rev. Thomas, 301, 304 

Allen, Judge William A., 212 

Allyn, Rev. John, 166 

Allyn, Matthew, 49 

Ames, Oakes, 29 

Amherst, 192, 104, 196, 108, 199 

Amsterdam, 3, 10 

Andre, Major John, 86, 135, 378, 

381 
Andrew, Governor. 308 
Andrews, Judge Charles B., 378 
Andrews, Mrs. Emma, 258 
Andrews family, 229 
Andros, Sir Edmund, 34, 37, 98, 

117, 167 
Anne, Queen, 117, 118, 226, 227 
Anthony family, 330 
Appleton, Captain, 171 
Appleton. Rev. Jesse, ior 
Appleton, Nathan, 230. 246, 317, 



Arms Corner, 162, 163 
Arms, John, 186 
Armstrong, Gen. S. C, 247 
Arnold, Benedict, 65, 68, 90, 134, 

136, 160, 231, 378 
Arnold, Matthew, 215, 252, 253, 

34i. 342 
Arthur. Chester Alan, 290 
Ashburner, Luke, 223 
Ashheld, Mass.. 160, 215 
Ashley, ('apt. John, 218, 243 
Ashpelon's raid, 172, 173 
Aspinwall estate, 2S5 
Atwater homestead, 131 
Atwater, Jeremiah, 260 
Atwater, Ward, 13S 
Auchmuty, Richard T., 275, 27S, 

290 
Aupaumet, Capt. Ilendrick, 225 
Austen, Jane, 44, 190 
Austin, Rev. James, 127 
Avery, Christopher, 68 
Avery, James, 67 
Avery's Island, 68 
Avila, Admiral, 2 
Ayres (Aver) homestead, 32 
Ayscourt, Dr., 225 



B 



Bacon, Asa. 379 

Bacon, Judge Ezekiel, 223 

Bacon, Dr. Leonard, 1, 146 

Baker, C. Alice, 160, 186, 1S7 

Baldwin, Rev. A., ioq 

Baldwin, Abner, 378 

Baldwin, Judge Henry, 127 

Baldwin, Michael, 120 

Baldwin, Ruth, 120-123 

Ball, Thomas, 357 

Ballard, Prof. Harlan H., 288, 319 

Bancroft, George, 22, 213, 304 

Barker, Judge James M., 310, 324 

Barlow, Joel, 101, 120-122 

Barnard, Daniel Denwy, 351 

Barnard, Dr. Frederick, 351 

Barnard house, 162 

Barnard, Joseph, 162 

Barnard, Dr. Lemuel, 22S 



393 



394 



Index 



Barnard, Samuel, 18S 
Barnes, James, 288 
Barnes, Capt. John S., 288 
Barrington, Sir William A. C, 344 
Bartholomew, Worthington, 125 
Bartlett, Ellen Strong, 135, 146 
Bartlett, Gen. Wm. Francis, 313, 

321 
Bartlett, Mrs. Wm. Francis, 203 
Bash-Bish Falls, 351 
Bates, Isaac Chapman, 213 
Battell family, 354 
Battell, Robbins, 356 
Battles (Battell), Justin, 258, 259, 

264 
Bayard, Colonel, 341 
Beach, Theron, 378 
Beale, Gifford, 50 
Beartown, 232, 256 
Beaux, Cecilia, 267 
Beckwith, Josiah G 378 
Beecher, Catherine E.,111,113,386 
Beecher, Hannah, 131 
Beecher, Henry Ward, 113, 288, 

384, 388 
Beecher, Lyman, 87, 88, 113, 114- 

120, 131 
Beekman family, 87 
Beers, Nathan, 134, 135 
Beers, Capt. Richard, 167 
Beers, Seth P., 380 
Bellamy, Edward, 239, 24S 
Bellomont, Earl of, 84, 85 
Bennington, 231, 301-304, 327, 32S 
Benton house, 107 
Benton, Lot, 114, 124 
Berkshire Coffee House ("Old 

Red Inn"), 273, 270, 280 
Berkshire Historical Society, 316, 

335. 336 
Bernardston, Mass., 160, 192, 193 
Bidwell, Rev. Adonijah, 256, 261 
Birdseye, Rev. Nathan, 202 
Bishop, Cortlandt Field, 290 
Bishop, Judge Henry W., 270 
Bishop, John, 104 
Bishop, Philo, 107 
Bissell, Israel, 1 24 
Blatchford, Peter, 65 
Block Island, 4, 10, 74, 264 
Blok (Block), Adrian, 2, 4, 7-10 
Bloody Brook, 163, 168-17 1, 177 
Blynman, Rev. Mr., 65 
Bonaparte, Jerome, 378 



Bonaparte, Napoleon, 120 

Booth's Inn, 91 

Boston, 19, 31, 126, 159, 177, 229, 

256 
Bostwick, Rev. Gideon, 342, 344 
Bowditch, Dr. Henry I., 319 
Bowdoin College, 284 
Bowne, Daniel, 100 
Brace, James, 378 
Braddock, Gen. Edward, 205, 236 
Bradley, Capt. Phineas, 136 
Bradley Tavern, 381, 384 
Branch, Anna Hempstead, 72, 73 
Branch, Mary Bolles, 72 
Brandy wine, 55, 59 
Branford, Conn., 35, 104, 125 
Brant, Chief, 22S 
Brattle, William, 319, 320 
Bridge, Horatio, 272, 276, 284 
Bridgman, Frederick A., 288, 336 
Bridgman. Sidney E., 212 
Briggs, Gov. Geo. N., 306, 328 
Briggs, Gen. Henry S., 321 
Brinley, Francis, 96 
Bristed, Charles Astor, 222 
British Museum, 202 
Brook, Chidley, 341 
Brooke, Lord, 16, 27, 159 
Brookfield, Mass., 159, 166, 167, 349 
Broughton family, 162, 170 
Brown, Henry C, 319 
Brown, James N., 62 
Brown, Col. John, 210, 228, 260, 

301, 302 
Brownell, Judge Byington, 222 
Brownlow, Lord, 287 
Bryan, Clark W., 320, 322 
Bryant, Wm. Cullen, 221, 233, 248, 

344-34S 
Buckham, Pres't Matthew, 288 
Buckingham, Minister, 32, 33 
Buckingham, William A., 79 
Buel, David, 380 
Buel, Elizabeth C, ^80 
Buel, Dr. Henry W. , 379 
Buell, Parson, 86 
Bull, Capt. Jonathan, 167 
Bull, Capt. Thomas, 37 
Bullard, Isaac, 166 
Bull's Bridge, 361 
Bunker Hill, 138, 162, 206 
Burbank, Gen. James B., 320 
Burbeck, Gen., 67, 72 
Burghardt, Conrad, 233 
Burghardt, John, 342 



Index 



195 



Burgoyne, Gen. John, 192, 231, 

232, 344-346 
Burr, Aaron, 88, 238, 382, 384 
Burr, Rev. E. F., 63 
Burr, Thaddeus, 384, 385 
Burroughs, John, 267, 268 
Burrows, John, 31, 35 
Burton, Richard, 298 
Bushnell, Francis, 37 
Bushnell, Horace, 37, 146, 371, 

380 
Bushnell Tavern, 357 
Bussche, Baron von dem, 292 
Butler, Allen, 378 
Butler, Charles E., 242, 252 
Butler, William, 210, 260 
Byfield, Nathaniel, 85 



Cable, George, 214 

Caldicott, Richard, 15 

Caldwell house, 107 

Caldwell, John, 236 

Cambridge, 19, 171, 206, 228, 298 

Campbell homestead, 3 1 6 

Canaan, Conn., 354, 357 

Canaan, X. Y., 336 

Canada, 4, 5, 27, 159, 168, 172, 173, 

177, 188,234. 345 
Canning, E. W. B., 222, 223 
Cannon house, 260 
Capen house, 213 
Carnegie, Andrew, 214 
Carpenter, Joel, 334 
Carroll, Charles, 240 
Carter, Samuel, 1S8, 189 
Castillia, 270 
Catlin, Alexander, 379 
Catlin homestead, 163 
Catlin, Dr. Joseph, 222 
Catlin' s Tavern. 3 78 
Caughnawaga, 182, 186 
Caughnawaga tribe, 177-183, 228 
Caulkins, Hugh, 65. 66 
Caulkins, Widow, 63 
Chadwick, John, 256 
Chambly, Canada, 186. 1S7 
Champion, Gen., 370 
Champion, Parson, 371, 378 
Champion, Reuben, 62 
Champlain, Lake, 27, 159, 17,; 
Champlain, Sieur de, 5, 184 
Champney, Elizabeth W., 162, 181 
Champney, J. Wells, 162 



Channing, Rev. Henry, 55, 67 

Channing, William E., 55 

Chapin, Hannah, 180 

Chapin, Samuel, 202 

Chapman, Robert, 25, 37 

Charles I., 7 

Charles II., 22, 27, 96 

Charles d'Orleans, 21 

Cheapside, Mass., 160, 164, 176 

Cheever, Ezekiel, 128 

Cheney, Seth, 271 

Cheshire, Mass , 297, 324, 330 

Chevenard, Mary Seymour, 148 

Child, Mrs. N. Rochester, 378 

Childs, Dr. Timothy, 304, 306 

Chittenden, Hon. Simeon B , 106 

Chittenden, William, 104-106 

Choate, Hon. Joseph H., 223, 252 

Church, Judge Samuel, 220, 371 

Cincinnati, Daughters of, 206 

Cincinnati, Society of, 206, 379 

Clap, Pres't Thomas, 138 

Clapp homestead (Northampton, 

Mass.), 2 12 
Clapp homestead (Salisbury, Conn.), 

357 
Clark, Prof. Alonzo, 306 
Clark, Daniel, 260 
("lark Tavern, 210 
Clark, Lieut, William, 208, 210, 213 
Clinton, De Witt, 100 
Cockenoe, 14, 15 
Coffing, John C, 357 
Coit homestead, 79 
Coit, Joseph, 65, 57 
Coit, .Nathaniel, 67 
Coleman, Sally, 172, 173, 183 
Collins, Gen. Augustus, 120 
Collins, Rev. Timothy, 379 
Colonial Dames of America, 206 
Colonial Wars, Society of, 206 
Colt, Ezekiel R., 31S 
Colt, Dr. Henry, 310 
Colt, John, 54 
Colt, Mrs. Samuel, 32 
Colt, Hon. Thomas, 294 
Cooper, J. Fenimore, 82, 195, 203 
Cooper, Lieut. Thomas. 167 
Copley. J. Singleton, 122, 383 
Cotton, Rev. John, 256 
Crampton house, 208 
Crane, Hon. W. Murray, 319, 324 
Crane, Zenas, 322 
Crane, Hon. Zenas, 316 
Crittenden, Lieut. Thomas, T19 



396 



Index 



Crofoot, Deacon Stephen, 299 
Cromwell, Oliver, 28, 32, 104 
Crowninshield, Frederic, 217, 22 

223, 245, 253 _ 
Cummings, Maria, 277 
Curtis, George William, 160, 347 
Curtis Hotel, 2 So 
Curtis, Peter, 228 
Curtis, William 0., 280, 2S6 
Cushing, Charles, 106 
Cushman, Charlotte, 244, 277 
Custis, Eleanor, 184 
Cutler, Jonathan, 222 
Cutting, Col. Walter, 313 



I) 



Daggett, Naphtali, 136, 137 

Dalton, 321-326 

Dana, Henrietta Silliman, 145 

Dana, James, 146 

Dana, Prof. James D., 336 

Dana, Judge Samuel, 270 

Davenport, John, 6, 16, 103, 13 

134 
Davis, William Stearns, 319 
Dawes, Anna Laurens, 316, 310 
Dawes, Henry Laurens, 319, 322 
Dawson, Arthur, 50 
Day, President, 127 
Dean family, 330 
Decatur, Commodore, 75 
Deerfield, Mass., 158-194, 19S, 20 

226, 234 
De Fersen, Count Axel, 37S 
De Forest, Lockwood, 13S 
Deming, Clarence, 388 
Deming homestead, 368 
Deming house, 62 
Deming, Capt. Julius, 368 
Deming, Solomon, 298 
Dering, Gen. Sylvester, 1)7. 98 
De Rochambeau, 37c) 
Desborough, Samuel, 9, 104, 107 
Deshon, John, 72 
Devotion, Rev. John, 37 
Dewey, Judge Charles A., 212, 21 
Dewey, Rev. Orville, 307, 351 
Dickens, Charles, 38 
Dickinson, Obadiah, 173 
Dickinson, Richard, 50 
Dixey, Richard E., 292 
Dixwell, Col. John, 134 
Dome, the, 3, 2S8, 336, 341, 3: 

35 7 



Dorchester, 14, 362 

Doude, Henry, 107 

Dow, Rev. Joseph Warren, 256 

Dresser house, 226 

Dudley, Justin, 107 

Dudley, Gov. Thomas, 19, 177 192 

Dudley, William, 107 

Duff, Sir Mountstuart Grant, 252 

Durand, Sir Mortimer, 292 

Dutch, 5, 6, 8-1 1, 20, 21, 15S 

Dutcher's Bridge, 354 

Duycincks, the, 247, 24S 

Dwight, Judge Charles C, 336 

Dwight, Rev. Edwin Welles, 336 

Dwight, Col. Elijah, 344 

Dwight, Capt. Henry, 218 

Dwight, Col. Henry Williams, 221 

239, 242 
Dwight, Judge John, 274 
Dwight, Gen. Joseph, 240, 311 

344. 340 
Dwight, Madame, 240, 260, 311 
Dwight, Capt. Nathaniel, 191 
Dwight, R. Henry W., 242, 336 
Dwight, Timothy (Dedham), 161 
Dwight, Col. Timothy, 203, 210 

212, 274 
Dwight, Pres't Timothy, 136, 140, 

274 



E 



Eames, Wilberforce, 15 

Earl, Ralph, 381 

East Hampton, L. I., 22, S6-8S, 126 

Easthampton, Mass., 202 

Easton, Col. James, 228, 302 

Eaton, Daniel C, 63 

Eaton, Theophilus, 22, 32, 130, 131 

Edwards, Mrs. Alfred, 270 

Edwards, Jonathan, 141, 183, 208, 

210, 212, 274, 278 
Edwards, Ogden, 128 
Edwards, Deacon Timothy, 228, 

231. 239 
Edwards, Rev. Timothy, 228 231, 

239 
Edwards, Col. W. M., 237 
Egleston house, 108 
Egleston, Major, 270, 278 
Egremont, Mass., 217 
Eldredge family, 354 
Eliot, Charles, 288 
Eliot, Rev. Jared, 30, 109, 126 
Eliot, John, 15, 106, i(>i 



I 


















; 






• 



398 



Index 



Gaylord, Ensign William, 355, 362, 

363 
Gaylordsville, Conn., 360-363 
George II., iii ., 294 
George III., 123, 126, 376 
Gere, Henry S., 210 
Gibbons, Lieut., 20 
Gilder, Richard Watson, 47, 266- 

268 
Gillet, Joseph, 189 
Gilman, Daniel Coit, 62 
Glastonbury, Conn., 9, 120 
Glendale, 2 iS, 249 
Goffe, William, 134, 196 
Gold, Thomas, 317, 321 
Goodale, Elaine, 352 
Goodman, Richard, 278, 286, 290 
Goodman, Mrs. Richard, 240 
Goodman, Richard, Jr., 276, 289 
Goodrich, Mrs. Mary H., 231 
Goodrich, Samuel, 225 
Goodrich, Capt. Silas, 225 
Goodrich, William, 225, 231 
Goodyear, Governor, 196 
Gould, Judge James, 375-378 
Gouverneur, Susan M., 303 
Graham, Dr. Sylvester, 213 
Grant, Donald, 145 
Grave, Deacon John, 108 
Great Barrington, 217, 220, 234, 

256, 301, 33S-352 
Greely, Mrs. Gabriel, 381 
Greene, George Washington, 122 
Greene, Gen. Nathanael, 55, 122, 

144 
Greene, Rev. Zachariah, 89 
Greenfield, Mass., 160, 164, 171, 

188, 198 
Greenfield Hill, Conn., 122 
Greenport, L. I., Si, 91, 92 
Green River, 341, 348 
Gregory, Herbert E., 146 
Greville, Richard, 16, 27 
Greylock Mt., 235, 2S4, 288, 202, 

3°°. 3°5-3° 8 - 33°-333 
Griffin, Capt., house, 108 
Griffing, Frederick A., 107 
Griswold, Anna W., 30 
Griswold, Edward, 44 
Griswold, Fort, 68-70, 74 
Griswold, Rev. George, 48 
Griswold, Rev. George C, 125 
Griswold, Matthew, 31, 42-48 
Griswold, Gov. Matthew, 374 
Griswold, Nathaniel, 48 



Griswold, Gov. Roger, 45 
Guilford, Conn., 10 1- 126 

H 

Haddam, 9, 31, 242 

Hadley (Nonotuck), 159, 166, 168,. 

180, 194—198, 202 
Hagerty, Ogden, 288, 290 
Hague, The, 10 
Hale, Edward Everett, 171 
Hale, John, 260 
Hale, Nathan, 67, 72 
Hale, Deacon Wm., 260 
Hall, Dr. N. G., 108 
Hall, Robert C, 62 
Hall, Titus, 107 
Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 106, 108,. 

109, 112 
Hamilton, Alexander, 88, 240, 

357- 376 
Hamilton, Col. Andrew, 341 
Hamlin, Captain, 346 
Hancock, John, 162, 238, 384 
Hancock, Mass., 328 
Hanks, Benjamin, 376 
Harding, Chester, 161 
Harding, George C, 316 
Harrison, Constance Cary, 18, 297 
Harrison, Elihu, 371 
Hart, Capt. Elisha, 32, ^t. 
Hart, Rev. John, 119 
Hart, Gen. William, 32, 38 
Hartford, Conn., 14, 19, 21, 53, 85, 

161, 202 
Hassam, Childe, 50, 63 
Hatfield, Mass., 166, 170, 173, 180, 

194, 198, 202, 234 
Haughton, Richard, 67 
Haven family, 98 
Haven, Dr. Henry C, 223 
Haven, H. P., 66 
Hawks, Eleazer, 170 
Hawks, Col. John, 162, 192 
Hawley, Lieut. Joseph, 20S 
Hawley, Major Joseph, 208 
Hawley, Schoolmaster Joseph, 208 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 66, 129, 222, 

247—250, 270, 272, 276, 278, 281— 

2S4, 332 
Hazen, Charles D., 215 
Heath, Deacon Cyrus, 258, 260 
Heckwelder, Rev. John, 2 
Hector, ship, 131 
Heemskirk, Admiral, 2 



Index 



399 



Hellegat (East River), 4, 5 
Hempstead, Joshua, 71, 72 
Hempstead, Robert, 71, 72 
Henshaw, Judge Samuel, 212 
Higginson, Francis, 103 
Higginson, Rev. John, 102, 103, 106 
Hill, George, 109 
Hillhouse family, 97 
Hillhouse, James, 127, 145 
Hillhouse, James A., 129, 145 
Hillhouse, William, 145 
Hillhouse, Maj. William, 72 
Hinsdale, Mass., 322 
Hinsdale, Ebenezer, 162, [93 
Hinsdale, Mehuman, 162, 167, 186 
Hinsdell, Samuel, 161 
Hoadley, John, 104, 109 
Hoadley, Samuel, 108 
Hockanum, Mass., 194-198 
Hoffman, Mrs. Bernard, 244 
Holland, 3, 18, 19, 158, 312 
Holland, J. G., 214-216, 319 
Holland, Lord, 7 
Hollanders, 3, 4, 9 
Holley, Gov. Alexander H., 358 
Hollister, Gideon, 376 
Holloway, Charlotte M., 73 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 123, 171, 

247, 275, 293, 294, 307, 316 
Holmes, Rev. Stephen, 31 
Holms, Rev. Abiel, 190 
Holyoke, Elizur, 202 
Holyoke, Mass., 199, 205 
Hooker, Rev. John, 210 
Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 196 
Hooker, Thomas, 19, 29, 49, 159, 

238, 298 
Hoosac, 203, 233, 332 
Hoosac Mountain, 159, 163, 234, 

203- 296 
Hoosac River, 234, 330-332 
Hoosac Tunnel, 296, 332 
Hopkins, Admiral, 71 
Hopkins, Gov. Edward, 22 
Hopkins, Mark, 222, 223, 226, 228, 

242, 288, 313 
Hopkins, Col. Mark, 344 
Hopkins Memorial Manse, 344, 349 
Hopkinson, Francis, 148 
Hoppin, Prof. James Mason, 375, 

37 6 
Horsford, Eben Norton, o=;. 97 
Hotchkin, Rev. John, 278, 288 
Hotchkiss, Parson, 32, 38 
Hotchkiss, Russell, 138 



Hotchkiss School, 358 
Housatonic River, 3, 6, 152, 220- 

35i. 3 6o -36s 
Howe, Judge Samuel, 213 
Howe, William, 50 
Howells, W. D., ^163 
Hoyt, David, 178 
Hoyt, Gen. Epaphras, 191-192 
Hoyt house, 162 
Hoyt, Jonathan, 192 
Hoyt Tavern, 162, 189 
Hubbard, Amos, 79 
Hubbard, Daniel, 107 
Hubbard, Gardiner G., 87 
Hubbard, Mrs. John H., 378 
Hubbard, Samuel, 104 
Hubbell, Matthew, 327, 328 
Hubbell, Wolcott, 3^27, 328 
Hudson River, 4, 5, 12, 84, 94, 

36S 

Huguenots, 5 

Hull, Commodore Isaac, 33, 138 
Hull, Commodore Joseph, ^^ 
Hunt, William M., 161 
Huntington, Judge Andrew, 79 
Huntington, Arriah, 198 
Huntington, Cornelia, 87 
Huntington, Rt. Rev. F. D., 194 

198, 212. 
Huntington, Gen. Jabez, 71) 
Huntington, Gen. Jedediah, 66, 

79, 148, 381 
Huntington, Capt. Joshua, 79 
Huntington, Lydia, 79 
Huntington, Gen. Samuel, 79, 149 

15- 
Huntington, W. H., 53 
Hurd, Ebenezer, 124 

Hurlburt, Thomas, 26 
Hurons, the, 181, 187 
Hurst family, 164 
Hutchinson, Ann, 5, 132 
Hutchinson, Capt. Edward, 166 
Hyde, Dr. Caleb, 250 
Hyde, Major Caleb, 285 
Hyde, homestead, 79 



Ice Glen, Stockbridge, 220, 250, 292 
Ingersoll, David, 342 
Ingersoll, Peter, 345, 349 
Ingleside School, 363 
Ingraham, James, 31, 36 
Iroquois, the, 27, 177 



400 



Index 



Ives, George R., 345 
Ives, Dr. Robert, 135 
Ives, Gen. Thomas, 349 
Ives, William, 135 



J 



James II., 132 

James, G. P. R., 225, 252 

James, Henry, 282 

James River, 6 

Jameson, Mrs., 246, 275 

Jarves Gallery, 145-148 

Jarvis house, 133 

Jay, Chief Justice John, 150, 311 

367 
Jefferson, President, 122, 367 
Jennings, Stephen, 172, 173 
Johnson, Prof. Joseph, 214 
Johnson, Nathanael, no 
Johnson, Robert U., 224, 267 
Johnson, Master Samuel, 107-110 
Johnson, Stephen, 57 
Johnson, Sir William, 203, 205 
Jones, Anson, 288 
Jones, Josiah, 232 
Jones, Thomas, 107 
Judd, Rev. Jonathan, 210 



K 



Kellogg, Mrs. Ensign H., 314-316, 

318, 385 
Kemble, Frances A. (Butler), 246- 

250, 273-287 
Kent, Conn., 354, 358, 361 
Kent Falls, 354 

Kidd, Capt. William, 44. 84, 85 
Kieft, William, 21 
Kilbourne, Dwight C., 3 So 
Kilbourne, Payne K., 375 
Kimberly, Anne, 107 
Kimberly house, 136 
Kinderhook, N. Y., 301, 311, 338 
King, Lieut. John, 202, 208 
"King Solomon," 22Q, 231 
Kirkland, Pres't John, 222 
Kirkland, Rev. Dr., 239 
Kitchel, Robert, 104 
Kneeland, Charles, 278 
Kneeland, F. N., 214 
Konkapot, Captain, 217, 222, 223, 

293. 294, 342 



Lachine, 182-184 

Lafayette, Marquis de, 38, 41, 55- 

62, 75, 122, 304, 318, 379, 3S0 
Laighton, Oscar, 77 
Lake Bantam, 365-368 
Lake Buel, 260, 264, 351 
Lake Garfield, 263, 264 
Lake, Laurel, 286-288 
Lake, Lily, 286 

Lake Makheenac, 21S, 270, 281, 2S6 
Lake Mangum, 354 
Lake Pontoosuc, 305, 306, 327 
Lake Riga, 356 
Lake Waramaug, 365 
Lake Washinee, 352 
Lake Washining, 352 
Lake Wequadnacn (Indian Pond), 

3 50 
hake Wononpakook, 357 
Lake Wononscopomuc, 357 
Lakeville, 357 

Lamb, Martha J., iS, 57, 97 
Lanesboro, 239, 265, 21)7 
Lanier, Charles, 287, 290 
Larrabee, Adam, 75 
La Salle, Robert, 184 
Latham, Cary, 66 
Latham, Capt. William, 66 
Lathers, Col. Richard, 313 
Lathrop, Elijah, 79 
Lathrop, Major, 107 
Laud, Archbishop, 104 
Laurel Cottage, 222, 250, 252 
Laurel Hill, 231, 232, 250 
Laurens, John, 14S 
Law, Richard, 72 
Lawrence, Dr. Arthur, 222, 252, 

348 
Lay, John, 46, 62, 63 
Lear, Tobias, 150 
Leavitt estate, 346 
Lebanon, N. Y., 336 
Ledyard, Colonel, 69, 70 
Lee, Mass., 217, 220, 252, 255 
Lee, Agnes, 1 17 
Lee, Gerald Stanley, 214 
Lee, Jennette, 214 
Lee, Rev. Jonathan, 357 
Lee, Dr. Joseph, 345 
Lee, Thomas, 44 
Leete, Gov. 104, 106 
Leete house, 8 
Leete 's Island, 117, 119 



Index 



401 



Leffingwell, Ensign, 40 

Leland, Elder, 330 

Lenox, Mass., 231, 249, 269 292, 

335- 349 

Lesley, Susan I., 209 

Leupp, Francis E., 265, ^67 

Lewis, Luke, 379 

L'Hommedieu, Benjamin, 91 

L'Hommedieu, Ezra, 97, 107 

Lincoln, Abraham, 308 

Lind, Jenny, 213 

Litchfield, Conn., 365—390 

Litchfield Historical and Scien- 
tific Society, 376, 381 

Little, Woodbridge, 301, 319 

Livingston family, 87, 97 

Livingston, Philip, 294, 338 

Livingston, Robert, 358 

Logan, John, 228 

London, 19, 123, 178, 226 

Longfellow, Henry W., 246, 247, 
282, 313, 321 

Long Island Sound, 1, 4 11, 28, 
81, 82, 127 

Loomis, Josiah, 342 

Lord, Lynde, 379 

Lord, Richard, 49, 54 

Lord, Thomas, 40, 54 

Lord, William, 50, 54 

Lorillard house, 5 

Lothrop, Captain, 16S-171 

Lothrop, George P., 82 

Lothrop, Samuel, 67 

Louis XIV., 177, 184, 187 

Louisiana. 68, 1 84 

Lowell, Edward J., 190 

Lowell, James Russell, 176, 276,335 

Ludington, Charles II., 52, 62 

Ludlow, Roger, 14 

Lyell, Sir Charles, 335 

Lyman, Capt. Caleb, 203 

Lyman, E. II R., 208, 200 

Lyman, Jonathan, 212 

Lyman, Mr., 1 57 

Lyman, Judge Samuel P., 190, 
209, 213 

Lyman, Gen. William, 195 

Lyme, Conn., 33, 36, 40, 42-63 

Lynch, Deacon Charles, 223 

Lynde, Nathaniel, 34 

Lynde, Judge Samuel, 22 

Lynde, Willoughby, 31 

M 
Mabie, Hamilton, 267 



Mackimoodus (East Haddam), 9 

Macready, 247 

Madison, Conn., ioS, 119 

Maltby house, 142 

Manhattan, 1, 2, 21 

Man waring house, 70 

Map, 391 

Marcy, Lucy B., 277 

Marie Antoinette, 60 

Marlborough, Duke of, 1S0 

Marsh, Ebenezer, 376 

Marshall, I lenry, 322 

Martineau, Harriet, 247, 270 

Marvin, Reinold. 4(1 

Marvin, Reynold, 376 

Mary and John, the. tn, 207,361 

Mason, Capt. John, 13, 75, 79, 

80, 161, 167 
Massachusetts Assembly, 124 
Massachusetts Historical S( iciety, 22 
Mather, Rev. Azariah, ^2, 62 
Mather. Cotti HI, 62, 1 70 
Mather, Increase, 52, 62, 1 81 
Mather, ('apt. R, S., 36 
Mather. Samuel, 62 
Matti " 'ii, I [( m. Charles, 286 
Mat t( ion, Philip, 162 
Maurice, Prince, 5 
Mayfloivcr the, r, 145 
McCurdy, Charles J., 55, 62 
McCurdy, Jeannette, 33 
McCurdy, John, 55, 56, 62 
McEwen, Rev. Abel, 67 
McKinley, President, 332 
Mead, Larkin G., 161 
Meigs, James, 108 
Meigs, Capt. Janna, 119 
Meigs, Josiah, 120 
Meigs, Col. Return J., 117 
Mellen, Charles S., 223 
Melvill, Maj. Thomas, 308, 309 
Melville. Herman, 247, 248, 276, 

307, 308 
Merriam, Nathaniel, 322 
Merwin, Orange, 363-365 
Metropolitan Museum, 53 
Miantonomoh, Chief, 79, 84 
Miles, John, 108 
Milford, Conn., 101, 125, 134, 136, 

i37. 152, 153 
Miller, Gen. Jeremiah, 87 
Miner, Parson, 261 
Miner, Thomas, 67 
Mitchell, Donald G., 127, 143-145, 



4-02 



Index 



Mohawk trail, 234, 235 

Mohawk tribe, g, 10, 14, 158, 167, 

176, 181, 186, 222, 223, 228, 234, 

235, 340, 361 
Mohegan tribe, 10, 82, 158, 227 
Mohican tribe, 3, 12, 220, 222, 203, 

294, 307, 338, 342, 361 
Montauk Point, 4, 10, 82, 83 
Montauk tribe, 3, 12, 220, 222 
Monterey, Mass., 2^6, 26s, 2q6 
Montreal, 182, 184,' 186 
Montville, Conn., 10, 76, 77 
Monument Mt., 219, 221, 242, 243 
Moore, Samuel, 357 
Moore, Thomas, 186, 306 
Moran, Thomas, 87 
Morewood, Mrs. Sarah, 312 
Morgan, Captain, 38 
Morgan, Gov. Edwin D., 297 
Morgan, Emily Malbone, 31, 36 
Morgan, George H., 2 88 
Morgan, J. Pierpont, 53 
Morgan, Serg't Miles, 202 
Morris, James, Jr., 380 
Morton, Marcus, 382 
Moseley, Captain, 170,171, 173 
Motley, John Lothrop, 79 
Mt. Alandar, 356 
Mt., Bald Peak, 359 
Mt. Barack Mat ill, 357 
Mt. , Bear, Conn., 356, 359 
Mt. Brace, 356 
Mt. Buck, 356 
Mt., Candlewood, 360 
Mt. Chadbourne, 333 
Mt. Fitch, 333 
Mt. Griffin, 333 
Mt. Holyoke/8, 166, 194 
Mt. I Iopkins, 7,33 
Alt (Eta, 332 ' 
Mt. Osceola, 336 
Mt., Prospect, 305 
Mt. Riga. 350, 355. 350 
Mt., Scatacook, 359-361 
Mt., Sugar Loaf, 164-166, 194, 195 
Mt., Talcott, 8 
Mt. Tom, Conn. River, 9 
Alt. Tom, Litchfield, 366-368 
Alt. Tom, Mass., 8, 9, 166, 194, [99, 

205 
Mt. 'Pom's Barack, 352 
Mt. Washington (Agiochook), N. 

II., 199 
Mount Washington, Mass., 351, 352 
Alt. Wetauwanchu, 357 



Mt. Williams, 305 
Mumford family, 85 
Mumford house, 67 
Mumford, Thomas, 70 
Munger, Gilbert, 121 
Munson, Rev. Samuel, 2S5 
Murray, Hon. Miss Augusta, 247 
Murray, Jonathan, 11s, 116 
Murray, W. H. H., 116 
Mystic River, 10-13, 75 



X 



Napoleon, 121, 304 
Narragansett Bay, 17, 82 
Narragansetts, the, 13, 15, 22, 

84, 195 
Natural Bridge, 332 
Neilson, William, 52 
Netherlands, United, 3, 21 
Nettleton, Walter, 251, 253 
Newburgh-on-Hudson, 374 
New Haven, Conn., 6-8, 11, 15, 

31, 103, 120-124, 127-140, 152- 
t 154 
New Haven Colony Historical 

Society, 145 
New London, Conn., 9, 10, 22, 30, 

48, 64-77, 81 
New Milford, Conn., 296, 354, 

363. 365 
New Orleans, 174, 185, 277 
New York. 1—4, 218, 220, 221, 228, 

293, 296, 311, 335, 330, 338, 341- 

, 348, 355. 356, 3 8a . 388 
New York Historical Society, 178 
Newton, Edward A., 303, 314, 318 
Newton, Rev. Wm. Wilberforce, 

.318, 324 
Nickerson, Rev. Thomas W., 303 
Nicoll, William, 98 
Niles, Grace Greylock, 332 
Nilsson, Christine, 290 
Nuns, Abigail, 1 72, 187 
Nims, Godfrey, 163, 172 
Nipmuck tribe, 1 1 
Noailles, Adrienne de, 57 
Noble, Capt. David, 302 
Noble, Elisha, 233 
Noble, Capt. James, 304 
Noble, Robert, 342 
Norfolk, Conn., 354, 356 
North Adams, Mass., 330-332 
Northampton, Mass., 151), 194—216, 
235, 274, 294 



Index 



403 



Northfield, Mass., 150, 160, 167, 202 

234 
North Guilford, Conn., 116,1 19—123 
Northrup, Col. Elijah, 285 
Norton, Charles Eliot, 160, 215 
Norwalk, Conn., 114, 125 
Norwich, Conn., 40, 76, 80 
Noyes, Rev. James, 45 
Noyes, Rev. Moses, 45, 62 
Noyes, Phi ebe ('■., 54, 62 
Noyes, Judge Wm. Chadwick, 62 
Noyes, Wm. Curtis, 376, 379 



October Mt., 288, 291 
Olmsted, Frederick L., 288 

Onasategen, ('hie!', [83 
Orange, Prince of, 16, 18 

< >rt< in, Deacon, 256 
Otis, Mass., 256, 260-264 
Ottawa River, [86, 187 



Palmer, Wm. Pitt, 22 s", 244 

Parker, Dr. S. P., 250 

Parkman, Francis, 184, 187, 190, 

223, 227 
Parsons, Rev. David, 198 
Parsons, Enos, 208 
Parsons, Isaac, 2 1 3 
Parsi mis, ( apt. Ji ilm, 202 
Parsons, Hon. John E., 226, 278, 

285, -'Ml 

Parsons, Rev. Jonathan, 52, 62 
Parsons, Cornet Joseph, 213 
Parsons Tavern, 1 57 
Partridge, Oliver, 226 
Partridge, Col. Samuel, 187, 202 
Paterson, Col. John, 231, 270, 290 
Paterson, Robert W., 288 
Peale, Rembrandt, 147 
Peck, Bela, 79 
Peirson, Rev. Abraham, 93 
Peirson, Catherine, 337 
Peirson, Squire Henry, 334, 336 
Peirson, Joseph J., 334 
Pelham Manor, 5, 89 
Pell, Dr. Thomas. 5 
Pepperrcll, Sir William, 234, 2-6 
Pequot tribe, 8, 10-14, 22, 25, 26, 
84. 117 



Percy, Lord, 86 
Perkins house, 378 
Perkins, J. Deming, 368 
Perry, Arthur L.,'235, 335 
Perry, Bliss, 233, 335 
Perry, Rev. David, 336 
Perry, Frederick, homestead, 223 
Perry's Peak, 335,336 
Peru, Mass., 32 1 

Peters Hugh, 16, 22, 30, 31, 103 
Peters, Dr. Thomas. 30 
Pettee homestead, 356 
Phelps homestead, 108 
Phelps, Wm. Walter, 139 
Phillip, King. 151), 166, 171, 338 
Phillips, Rev. George, 261 
Phillips, Martha L., 144 
Phillips, Wendell, 204 
Phillips, Col. William, 332 
Pierce, Moses. 79 
Pierpont house, 121,1, 133 
Pierpont, Rev. James, 133, 134 
Pierpont, Rev. John, 37 1 
-nt , Sarah, 133, 238 
Pierrepont, Judge Edwards, 286 
Pilgrims, the, 23, 25 
Pittsfield, Mass., 203, 247 
Plunkett, Harriet M., 504, 318, 319 
Plunkett, Hon, T. F., 319, 320 
Plymouth, Mass., i, 23, 31, 264 
Plympton, Sergt. Jonathan, 173 
Pocumtuck tribe, 170 
Pomeroy, Asahel, 213 
Pomeroy, Capt. Ebenezer, 21S 
Pomerov, Eltweed, 206 
Pomerov. George E., 206 
Pcmeroy, Lemuel, 318 
Pomeroy, Polly, 212 
Pomeroy, Col. Seth, 203-207, 213, 

301 
Pope, Alexander, 177, 180 
!'i ipe, Franklin L., 3 i.s 
Porter, Capt. Moses, 198 
Porter, Samuel, 2 iS 
Powell, Dr. Lyman, 214 
Pownal, Vt., 234 
Pratt, Humphrey, 32, 38, 41 
Pratt, Richard F , 32 
Pratt, Lieut. William, 33 
Prince, Thomas, 188 
Proctor, John R., 267 
Putnam, Annie C, 189 
Putnam, Israel, 124, 206 
Pynchon, John, 64, 19, 163, 166, 

168, 202 



4 04 



Index 



Q 



Quebec, 5, 187, 188, 192 
Quebec, Archbishop of, 186 
Quincy, Debby Hewes, 290 
Quincy, Dorothy, 273, 275, 375 
Quincy, Dorothy (Hancock), 23S, 

~ 3. 8 4. 3 8 5 

Quincy, Judge Edmund, 273, 383 

Ouincy, Pres't Edward, 311 

Quincy, Josiah, 275 

Quincy, Samuel, 275 

Quinnipiac (New Haven), 14 

Qumnipiac tribe, 8, 10 



R 



Race Rock Light, 74, Si, 82 

Radford, William, 147 

Raizenne, Marie, 1S7 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 6 

Randolph, Peyton, 367 

Ranger, Henry W., 50 

Ransom, Col. Theophilus, 382 

Ransom, W. L., 381 

Rathbone, John F., 288 

Rattlesnake Mt., 217, 220, 276 

Rawdon, Lady Charlotte, 187 

Redfield house, ioq 

Red Hills tribe, 9 

Red Lion Inn, 222, 229 

Reeve, Judge Tapping, 378, 382,389 

Rehoboth, Mass., 171, 258 

Reid, Robert, 254 

Revere, Paul, 123, 189 

Reynolds, Rev. Peter, 2S5 

Rhine, the old, 18 

Richards, Capt. Guy, 67 

Richards, Capt. Peter, 70 

Richardson, Col. H. H., 321 

Richardson house, t,t, 

Robbins, Annie, 278 

Robbins, Rev. Annie R., 354 

R( ibbins, James, 296 

Robinson, Henry P., 106, 109 

Robinson, Samuel, 107, 109 

Root, Eli, 299 

Ri iot, ( ieorge P., 35 1 

Rose of Yarmouth, ship, 226 

Rossiter, Dr. Bryan, 107 

Rossiter, Col. David, 304 

Rossiter Tavern, ^44 

Rotch, Arthur, 2S8 

Roxbury, Conn., 354 

Rudd, Malcolm D., 357, 358 



Ruggles, Rev. Thomas, 109 
Russell farm, 354 
Russell, Rev. John, 134 
Rutledge, Benjamin H., 3S2 



Sabine, Dr. W. T., 62 

Sachem's Head, 8, 9, 91 

Sage's Ravine, 351, 352 

Sag Harbor, L. I., 91, 117 

St. Anne Bout de L'Isle, 186 

Saint-Gaudens, A., 66, 202, 252 

St. Lawrence River, 27, 159, 1S2- 

iSS, 233 
Salisbury, Conn., 220, 353-359 
Salisbury, Edward E., 50, 146 
Salisbury, Evelyn McCurdy, 50, 56 
Saltonstall, Rev. Gurdon, 64 
Saltonstall, Sir Richard, 27 
Sampson, Latimer, 97 
Sanborn, Kate, 193 
Sandisfield, Mass., 255, 260 
Saratoga, battle of, 196, 232, 343- 

346 
Sassacus, Chief, 10-13, I 3° 
Sault au Recollet Mission, 164, 1S6 
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Duke of, 121 
Say and Sele, Lord, 16, 27, 159 
Saybrook, Conn., 13, 16-41, 124 
Sayre, Job, 93, 94 
Scha ff, Gen. Morris, 321 
Schaghticoke tribe, 220, 293, 354, 

3S9-3 6 3 
Schermerhorn, Adeline E., 278 
Schermerhorn, F. Augustus, 290 
Schuyler, Col. Peter, 178, 226, 341 
Schuyler, Capt. Philip, 311, 346 
Scott, Sir Walter, 14, 127, 190 
Scoville homestead, 357 
Scudder, Horace E., 328 
Seabury, Bishop, 67 
Searles estate, 345 
Searles, Mrs. Mary Hopkins, 349 
Sedgwick, Alexander. 241 
Sedgwick, Anne Douglas, 267 
Sedgwick, Catherine M., 240-242, 

246, 247, 270, 271, 276 
Sedgwick, Charles, 250, 270, 276,277 
Sedgwick, Elizabeth Dwight, 277 
Sedgwick, Henry D., 246, 247 
Sedgwick homestead, 241 
Sedgwick, Gen. John, 384 
Sedgwick, Theodore, 222, 223, 234, 

240, 241, 344 



Index 



405 



Sedgwick, Gen. Wm. D., 277 

Seelye, Pres't L. Clark, 195, 213 

Sergeant, Electa, 231 

Sergeant, Erastus, 128 

Sessions, Ruth H., 214 

Sewall, Samuel, 85 

Seward, Capt. Wm., 119 

Seymour, Judge E. W., 378 

Seymour, Mrs. Edward W., 381 

Seymour, Horatio. 377 

Seymour, Morris, 378 

Seymour, Moses, 378 

Seymour, Judge Origen S., 37S 

Seymour, Dr. Origen S., 378 

Seymour, Ozias, 378 

Sharon, Conn., 358 

Shaw, Hon. Henry, 319, 328 

Shaw, Henry \\\, 329 

Shaw, Lucre! ia. 7 1 

Shaw, Nathaniel, Jr., 68-71 

Shaw, Robert Gould, 2(;o 

Shays's Rebellion, 239, 297, 3 \<>. 352 

Sheaffe, Jacob, 104, 106 

Sheffield, Mass., 233, 254, 264, 342, 

351 

Sheldon, David. 163 
Sheldon, Col. Elisha, 374-376 

Sheldon, George, 1(12, [63, 172, [79 
Sheldon, Jennie Anns, [64 
Sheldon, Ensign John, 163, 180 
Sheldon, John, 162, 174. 1 7 w , 180 
Sheldon, Thomas, 378, 379 
Shelley, Percy B., 21 
Shelter Island, Si, 82, 91, 95-qS 
Shepherd, General, 157 
Shepherd, Col. James, 2:3 
Shepherd, Rev. Samuel. 285 
Shepherd, Thomas II.. 213 
Sherman, Roger, 131, 132. 134. 130. 

153. I 54- 3 6 3 
Sherman, William, 363 
Sherrill house, 336 
Shipman, Elias, 1 38 
Shirley, Gov. Wm., 205 
Shrewsbury, Duke of, 178 
Sichel, Edith, 57, 60 
Sigourney, Lydia H., n, 79. $15 
Silliman, Prof. Benjamin. 148. 264 
Six Nations, 222, 225, 229-231.234 
Skinner, Judge Richard, 382 
Skinner, Gen. Timothy, 380 
Slater family, 238, 260 
Sloane, John, 288 
Smith College, 63, 195, 213-21; 
Smith, Eli, 379 



Smith, F. Hopkinson, 82 

Smith, Gideon, 290 

Smith, J. E. A. (Godfrey Grey lock). 

299, 306, 320, 326 
Smith, Capt. John, 1, 5, 12 
Smith, John Cotton, 358 
Smith, Lyman J., 378 
Smyth, Ralph £>., 107, 109 
Society of the Cincinnati, 206, 379 
Sons of the Revolution, 206, 336 
Southampton, L. I., 93—95, 99 
South Egremont, 351 
South Hadley, 194, 199, 200 
South Lee, 252, 255 
South Mt., Pittsrleld, 305, 306 
Southold, L. I., 82, 91, 92 
Southwicks, the, 98 
Southworth, Nathan, 33 
Sperry, Richard, 134 
Sprats. Wm.. 369, 370 
Springfield, Mass., 159, 163, 167, 

196, 202, 205, 206, 338, 340 
Standish, Miles, 25, 07 
Stanley, Captain, 340 
Stanley, Dean, 222, 223 
Stanton, John, 109 
Stanti >n, Thomas. 22 
Stark, Gen. John, 302 
Starr. Comfort, 187 
Starr homestead, 67 
Staten Island, 342 
Steadman, Capt. Thomas, 256, 264 
Stebbins, Benoni, 162, 17S 
Stebbins, Deacon, 16 1 
Stebbins, John, 170 
Stebbins, Joseph, 162 
Stebbins, Rowland, 170 
Stebbins, Thankful (Therese), 187 
Stedman, Edmund C, 194 
Steiner, Bernard C, ioq 
Sterling, Gen. Elisha, 358 
Stevens house, 109 
Stiles, Pres't Ezra, 139, 140, 153 
Stockbridge, 217-255, 274, 311, 336, 

342. 359 
Stockbridge Bowl, 218, 270, 2S1 
Stockbridge Indians, 220-233, 326, 

33S, 354 
Stockwell, Quentin, 163, 173, 187 
Stoddard, Esther Mather, 208, 235 
Stoddard, Col. John, 195, 218, 

293, 294 
Stoddard, Capt. Solomon, 239 
Stoddard, Rev. Solomon, 195, 207 
Stokes, Anson Phelps, 270 



406 



Index 



Stokes, Anson Phelps, Jr., 135, 149 

Stone homestead, 106 

Storrs, Rev. John, 91 

Storrs, Nathan, 212 

Storrs, Rev. Richard S., 91 

Stoughton, Captain, 14, 16 

Stowe, Harriet B., 1 13 , 1 1 5, 385, 390 

Straits Mt.. 360 

Stratford, Conn., 101, 125, 135, [52, 

340, 360 
Street, Augustus, 146 
Street, Nicholas, 146 
Strong, Gov. Caleb, 207, 213 
Strong, Jedediah, 380 
Strong, Elder John, 207, 20S 
Sugar Loaf Mt., 164-166 
Sumner, Charles, 190, 276, 279 
Sumner, Increase, 349 
Sunderland, Mass., 163, 194, [98 
Swansea, Mass., 66, 71, 330 
Swift, Jabez, 358 
Swift, Zephaniah, 120 
Sydney, Sir Philip, 3 
Sylvester, Brinley, 97 
Sylvester Manor, 95-98 
Sylvester, Nathaniel, 96, 97 
Symonds, Colonel, 304 



Tack, Augustus V., 162 
Taconic School, 35S 
Talcott, Allen B./53. 54 
Talcott, John, 340 
Talcott, Major, 326, 338 
Tallmadge, Col. Benjamin, 148, 

374, 379-3 81 
Tallmadge, Deacon, 87 
Tallmadge, Mary Floyd, ^76, 379, 

Taylor, Charles J., 338, 343, 345 

Taylor, Capt. John, 202 

Thames, the, Eng., 6, 27 

Thames (Pequot), Conn., 10-12, 158 

Thatcher family. 85 

Thomas, Edith M., 69, 137, 267 

Thompson family, 87 

Thoreau, 174, s^3 

Tibbals, Thomas, 134 

Ticonderoga, 256, 302, 320 

Tienhoven, Cornelius Van, 91 

Titcomb, Colonel, 205 

Todd, Charles B., 121 

Todd, Rev. John, 313, 318 

Todd, Rev. Jonathan, 119 



Tomkins house, 134 

Tooker, Wm. Wallace, 14, 89 

Torrey, Bradford, 78 

Totoket tribe, 1 1 5 

Townsend, Rev. Jonathan, 256 

Townsend, Major, 340 

Tracy, Uriah, 120, 376, 390 

Treadway, Allen E., 222 

Treat, Major Robert, 171 

Treat, Rev. Robert, 32 

Treat, Rev. Sidney H., 252 

Trowbridge, Francis B., 380 

Trowbridge, Thomas R., 138 

Truelove, ship, 135 

Trumbull Gallery, 145-148 

Trumbull. Col. John, 51, 122, 132 

Trumbull, Gov. Jonathan, 79, 374 

Tryon, Gen. Wm., 86, 136, 374 

Tucker, Joseph, 286 

Tucker, Richard, ^^ 

Tuckerman estate, 239 

Tufts College, 129 

Turner's Falls, Mass., 160, 1(12, 188 

Tuttle house, 107 

Tvler, President, S7 

Tyler, Dr. Wm. EL, 32S 

Tyringham, Mass., 220, 255—268, 

296 
Tytus, Robb de Peyster, 260, 261 



U 



Uncas, n-13, 40, 79, 80, 103 
Underhill, Capt. John, 27 
Under Mountain Road, 353-358 
Underwood, F. L., 389, 390 
Unkamet's Road (trail), 294 
Upton family, 330 



V 



Van Buren, Martin, 378 
Van Cortland, Stephen, 221, 34 1 
Vanderbilt, W. K., Jr., 98 
Vanderpoel, Emily N., 379, 381 
Vandreuil, Governor, 163, 177, 188 
Van Dyke, Henry, ^t,t, 
Vane, Sir Henry, 19 
Van Rensselaer family, 27, S7 
Van Rensselaer Manor, 358, 342 
Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Schuyler, 163 
Van Schaack, Cornelius, 311 
Van Schaack, Henry, 309-312 
Van Schaack, Henry C, ^12 
Van Winkle, Capt. "E. Beach, 378 



Index 



407 



Venner, Elsie, 306 
Vere, Lord, 17 
Versailles, 184 
Virginia, 5, 124, 193 
Voorhees, Clark G., 54 

W 

Waconah Falls, 324-326 

Wadsworth, Benjamin, 340 

Wadsworth, Colonel, 148, 156, 157 

Wadsworth, Daniel, 264 

Wadsworth, Gen. Elijah, 378 

Wadsworth, William, 101 

Wainwright, Lieut. George, 345 

Wainwright, Gen. Timothy, 345 

Wait, John, 67 

Wait, Marvin, 67 

Waite, Benjamin, 172, 173 

Waite, Henry M., 54, 62 

Waite, Morrison R., 54 

Walker, Dr. Charles, 212 

Walker, Col. Robert, 357 

Walker, Judge Win., 286, 289 

Waller, William, 46 

Wallingford, Conn., 155 

Walpole, Horace, 269 

Ward. Gen. Andrew, 112. 113 

Ward, Nahum, 255 

Ward, Samuel Grav, 270, 272, 276, 
288 

Ward, William, 107 

Ware, Dr. Henry, 190 

Ware, Orlando, 163 

W T are, Robert, 166 

Ware, Win. Rotch, 278 

Warham, Rev. John, 208, 362 

Warner, Charles D., 297 

Warner, Donald T., 356, 357 

Warner family, 212 

Warner homestead, 358 

Warner, Col. Seth, 354 

Warriner, John R., 319 

Washington, George, 4, 41, 51, 58, 
59, 71, 79, 81, 91, 92, 12(1, 135, 
147—157, 206, 228, 241, 24c), 204, 
27S, 328, 342, 344, 367, 376-381 

Washington, Lawrence, 18 

Washington Mountain, 291, 296- 
298 

Watch Hill, 74, 80 

Watertown, Mass., 15, 27, 124, 
171, 261 

Watrous house, 108 

Watson, Elkanah, 309 



Webb, John, 208 

Webster, Gov. John, 155 

Webster, Noah, 120 

Webster, Reuben, 379 

Wells, Capt. Jonathan, 178, 180 

Wendell, Jacob, 274, 294, 310, 313 

Wendell, Oliver, 239 

West, Benjamin, 122 

West, Clara L., 21 

West, Dr. Stephen, 238 

Westenhook Patent, 218 

Westfield, Mass., 167, 256, 298, 

3°5. 33 8 > 34o 
Westinghouse, George, 287 
Weston, Hon. Byron, 322 
West Point, 376, 378 
Wethersfield, Conn., 19, 31, 156, 

202 
Whallev, Edward, 134, 196 
Wharton, Edith, 287 
Wheeler, Merritt, 346 
Wheelwright, Gen. John, 203 
Whistler, James McN., 170, 236 
White, Andrew D., 145 
White, I lenrv, 162 
White, Dr. Vassal!, 226 
Whitfield, Henry, <;. 102-106, 113 
Whitfield homestead (Old Stone 

House), 102 
Whiting, Charles G., 215 
Whiting, Dr. William, 22S, 344 
Whitman, Rev. Samuel, 208 
Whitney, Eli, 130, 142, 144 
Whitney, Josiah D., 212 
Whitney, Wm. Dwight, 146 
Whiton, Gen. Joseph, 222, 240 
Whit tier, John G., 10 
Whittlesey, Chauncey, 146 
Whittlesey, Capt. Ezra, 231 
Whittlesey homestead, t,t,, 49 
Wilcox house, 108 
Wilcox, Capt. Sylvanus, 343 
Wildman house, 107 
Wilkins, Mary E.. i7<), 190, 191 
Willard, Enoch, 225 
Willard house, 163, 189, 191 
Willard, Rev. Samuel, 189, 190 
Willard, Sergeant, 20 
William the Conqueror, 206 
Williams, Abigail, 240 
Williams College, 243, 261,331-335 
Williams, Cyrus, 222 
Williams, Eleazer, 188 
Williams, Col. Elijah, 239 
Williams, Ephraim, 162 



4o8 



Index 



Williams, Col. Ephraim, 232, 25 s, 

269 
Williams, Col. Ephraim, Jr., 192, 

234, 3 11 
Williams, Eunice, 1 81-184 
Williams, Eunice Mather, 171, 181, 

208 
Williams garrison, 220, 223, 232, 233 
Williams homestead, 182, 191 
Williams, Capt. Israel, 203, 234 
Williams, Rt. Rev. John, 162, 234 
Williams, Rev. John, 172, 181, 182, 

187, 188 
Williams, John Chandler, 303, 306 
Williams, Squire John, 162 
Williams, Jonathan, 278 
Williams, Col. Prentice, 232 
Williams, Robert, 226 
Williams, Roger, 15, 31, 134 
Williams, Rev. Stephen, 183 
Williams, Dr. Thomas, 234 
Williams, Rev. Warham, 250 
Williams, Gen. William. 222 
Williams, Rev. William (of Hat- 
field) , 208, 226 
Williams, Rev. William (of Weston), 

208, 256 
Williams, Winslow T., 70 
Williamsburg, Mass., 160, 194, 215 
Williamstown, Mass., 234, 235, 243, 

261, 301, 328-333 
Williston, Parson, 136 
Williston, Rev. Payson, 202 
Windsor, Conn., 10, 19, 157, 202, 

206, 208, 362 
Windsor, Mass., 321, 324-326 
Winslow, Gov. Edward, 130, 264 
Wmslow, Gov. Josiah, (17 
Winthrop, Adam, 68 
Winthrop, Fitz-John, 91 
Winthrop, Gov. John, 1, 19, 29, 

68, 93, 131, 132 
Winthrop, Gov. John, Jr., 19, 20, 

22, 30, 31, 48, 49, 64, 65 
Winthrop, Robert G., 22, 82 
Wister, Owen, 280 



Witter Tavern, 79 

Wizard's Glen, 324 

Woerden, 18 

Wolcott, Frederick, 373 

Wolcott, Gov. Oliver, 120, 149, 

I 53< i54, 372-37 6 
Wolcott, Gov. Oliver, Jr., 370, 373, 

374, 378 
Wolcott, Gov. Roger, 372, 374 
Wolcott, Ursula, 374 
Woodbridge, Rev. Ephraim, 67 
Woodbridge, Jahleel, 222, 239 
Woodbridge Oak, 136 
Woodbridge, Rev. Timothy, 223, 

225, 232, 294 
Woodbury, Levi, 382 
Woodcock, Bishop, 108 
Woodruff, General, 378 
Woodruff, George C, 378 
Woodruff, George M. 369, 378, 3S2 
Woodruff, James P., 369 
Woodruff, Nathaniel, 376 
Woodward, Henry, 213 
Woolsey, Sarah, 240 
Wooster, Gen. David, 138 
Wooster, Mary Clap, 138 
Worcester, Mass., n, 123 
Worthington, Colonel, 157, 202, 210 
Worthington, Rt. Rev. George, ^7, 

318 
Worthington, Nicholas, 37 
Worthington, Rev. William, 37 
Wright, Capt. Benjamin, 202 
Wright, Lieut. Joseph A., 304 
Wright, Mabel Osgood, 151 
Wyllys, Governor, 49, 91, 106 
Wynne, Madeleine Yale, 189, 191 



Y 



Yale Art School, 53, 145-148 

Yale, Catharine B., 189 

Yale University, 31-35, 66, 120, 

128, 129 
Yancy, Governor, 288 
Yokun, Chief, 269 



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NO stream in America is so rich in legends and 
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